Hi Folks,

We are now three weeks past Election Day and two California U.S. House races along with one state legislative contest remain too close to call. We've created some charts below showing how CD 13 and CD 45 results have tightened and changed since Election Night to help illustrate how incredibly close these two contests are. 

In the Central Valley's CD 13, yesterday Democratic challenger Adam Gray took the vote count lead over Republican incumbent John Duarte for the first time since Election Night. Duarte had held the lead since November 6th, but it has fairly steadily declined since then. The pattern is very similar to the results we saw in this contest in 2022 featuring the same candidates. In the 2022 election, Duarte won the race by just 564 votes. In the 2024 election, just 182 votes currently separate the two candidates of the nearly 209,000 votes cast and counted to date. There are 15,725 ballots remaining to process, and 14,241 ballots still eligible to cure in the five counties (Fresno, Madera, San Joaquin, Merced, Stanislaus) that are home to this district.

The deadline for voters to submit a valid signature to cure a challenged ballot is Sunday, December 1st at 5 pm. According to this guidance document from the Secretary of State, voters may cure ballots by completing and signing a signature verification statement and submitting it to their elections office in person, by mail, fax or email. Voters who want to verify their vote-by-mail ballot was received and counted can go to wheresmyballot.sos.ca.gov and look up their ballot status. CVF's Directory of County Election Offices provides current contact information for all 58 counties. 

In Southern California's Congressional District 45, Democratic challenger Derek Tran took the vote count lead over Republican incumbent Michelle Steele on November 18th, and has held it since then as ballots continue to be processed in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Tran's lead remains extremely narrow at just 0.19 percent. With over 300,000 votes already counted, just 613 currently separate the two candidates. There are 32,833 total ballots countywide remaining to be processed in L.A. and Orange counties. According to the Secretary of State's Unprocessed Ballots report, there are also 24,790 ballots in Orange and L.A. counties still eligible to cure. 

In state legislative contests, just one race, Assembly District 58, remains too close to call, with only 600 votes separating the candidates and 9,700 ballots remaining to process in the two counties - San Bernardino and Riverside - that are home to this district. An additional 18,400 ballots remain eligible to cure in those counties until Dec. 1. On Monday, In SD 37, Politico reported that Orange County Democratic incumbent Josh Newman conceded to his Republican challenger Steven Choi, whose lead currently stands at 1.3 percent. 

According to the Secretary of State's Unprocessed Ballots Status report, as of last night, 159,441 ballots remain to be processed statewide, nearly 16 million ballots have been counted, and about 105,152 are eligible to cure. 

At the national level, the Associated Press has called 213 House races for Democrats, 219 for Republicans and three remain to be called, two of which are in California. According to the state's elections calendar counties have until December 5th to finalize and certify their vote counts. 

CVF will continue to track these contests through our Close Count Transparency Project and Close Count Tracker and provide updated vote counts daily, though county election offices are likely to be working at a reduced schedule over the long weekend. According to this news release, Los Angeles County will issue its next vote count update on Dec. 2 and certify results on Dec. 3. A detailed breakdown of Orange County's ballot counting status is also available. Please see CVF in the News for more coverage of this project and California's long vote count. 

Wishing you and yours a peaceful and restful Thanksgiving holiday,

-- Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation