CA’s 7th Congressional District race still too close to call.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: Incumbent Democrat Congressman Ami Bera has cut the lead of his Republic challenger Doug Ose to just over 2,000 votes in the hotly contested Sacramento County’s 7th Congressional District, a race which is still open as ballots that came late have yet to be fully counted.
According to the latest figures available, Ose has received 64,615 votes versus Khanna’s 62,432.
Ose, a former congressman, saw his lead drop from the 3,011-vote advantage he had on Election Day. He’s trying to become the first California Republican challenger to oust a Democratic House incumbent since the Republican Revolution of 1994, reported the Sacramento Bee.
The Elk Grove Citizen reported that there were also 3,733 under-votes, meaning that many ballots didn’t cast a vote for either candidate.
Bera had a slight lead after the first returns were announced. Ose then took a similar lead later in the evening. The challenger increased his lead to about 2,000 votes shortly before the California Secretary of State’s Office announced the latest figures.
Ose’s campaign staff said there were still about 90,000 ballots countywide to be counted, of which he estimated that about 70 percent were from the 7th Congressional District. They anticipated a final result by November 8.
Bera, Ose, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and independent organizations spent millions of dollars on this race.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Bera was confident that he would erase Ose’s lead, noting that he won two years ago after being virtually tied with Republican Rep. Dan Lungren on election day.
“We still have thousands of votes left to count, but I feel very good about where we are today,” Bera said in a statement Wednesday.