By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

OAKLEY -- It now becomes a waiting game for Rep. Virginia Beamer, who is leading challenger Don Hineman by only five votes.

"It's pretty close," Beamer said this morning from her home in Oakley.

Now, it's a matter of waiting on what the county canvassing boards -- most of whom will meet Friday -- determine.

Meanwhile, Larry Salmans, a Hanston Republican, will meet incumbent Janis Lee in the November election for 36th Senate District race. Salmans beat out challenger Robert Tilford, McCracken, 4,582 to 3,064 in the race to move ahead to the general election.

Although Salmans was reluctant to call it a victory, he has been told by the Kansas Secretary of State's office that his 1,500-vote lead will be hard to overcome with results still pending from 11 precincts still waiting to report. Results from Salman's home county, Hodgeman, haven't been reported yet.

"They're not giving an official congratulation," he said this morning. "And I don't want to be pre-emptive."

However, he's already planning his strategy for the race against Lee, a Kensington Democrat who beat out Salmans four years ago when two Senate districts were combined.

Next week, he will head north into Phillips County to start door-to-door campaigning and putting out yard signs.

"Areas to the north of Interstate 70 is where I'm going to have to concentrate on early," he said.

After sweeping through the northern tier of counties, he then will move back south and cover the southern counties in the district.

Salmans said he plans to return north of I-70 prior to the election.

"I'm going to have to plow that field twice," he said.

But he thinks it's a contest that can be won.

"I think it's going to take an awful lot of work," Salmans said. "I think it's winnable, but it's a lot of work."

In the Beamer-Hineman contest, it will be a waiting game for a few more days.

Hineman, a Dighton Republican, could not be immediately contacted for comment.

While most of the canvassing boards -- the county commissions in the 118th House District -- will meet Friday to go over the votes, Beamer said she was told a few might not get together until Monday.

While the race is super tight, Beamer wasn't surprised, adding she knew it would be a close race.

"Oh, it's always possible," she said of a race with only five votes separating the candidates. "Anything's possible in an election."

Beamer is holding out hope that her short lead might hold out, noting she was told provisional ballots often don't change the outcome.

"I knew it was going to be close," she said of the race. "I've known it since the first of this year when he started going to county commissions and asking for support."

She also understands the Kansas Livestock Association, which endorsed Hineman, a former KLA president, was behind his entry into the race.

"That's the reason he's in the race," she said of the KLA.

Beamer said she voted against an immigration bill filled with KLA-suggested amendments that would have weakened the state's law. That didn't set well with some KLA officials, she said.

The person who authored the amendments, Beamer said, "got in my face at a meeting I was at."