Lone Bay Area GOP lawmaker holds thin lead
The Bay Area’s lone Republican legislator is facing a serious threat in her bid for re-election.
Early vote counts after last week’s election put East Bay Assemblywoman Catharine Baker ahead of Democratic challenger Rebecca BauerKahan by a narrow margin. That margin has been whittled down to a mere 526 votes — 80,069 to 79,543, or 50.2 to 49.8 percent.
Elections officials had no estimate Tuesday for how many ballots were left to be counted in the 16th Assembly District, which stretches from Walnut Creek and Lafayette southeast through Livermore. But it’s likely to be in the thousands.
The thin margin is a pronounced departure from the June primary, in which Baker, R-San Ramon, defeated BauerKahan by 13 points. It is also a shift from Baker’s last bid for re-election, in 2016, when she defeated her Democratic opponent by more than 10 points.
Baker is an anomaly in the solid-blue Bay Area:
Since she was first elected in 2014, she has been the only Republican in either the Legislature or Congress.
Bauer-Kahan, a law professor from Orinda, was bolstered by a slate of progressive endorsers and the state Democratic Party. They worked to tether Baker closely to President Trump and national Republicans in a district where registered Democrats outnumber GOP voters by 41 to 28 percent.
Baker acknowledged the narrowing gap in October.
The race “will be much tighter because of the national dynamics,” she said. “But I’m very energized by the support.” She could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Bauer-Kahan’s campaign manager, Tim Steggall, said the Democrat is “cautiously optimistic.”
“There are tens of thousands of votes left,” Steggall said. “The trend looks good for us.”
Steggall spoke from the Alameda County elections office, where he said Bauer-Kahan’s team was observing the vote counting.
“We’re just ... making sure that every ballot is counted,” Steggall said. “We’re sitting tight until that point.”
It could be a while. Although the county election offices hope to have the final results before Thanksgiving, changes in electoral rules, the growing use of mail ballots and the introduction of conditional voter registration means that the counting could extend as late as Dec. 7. Holly Honderich is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: holly. honderich@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hollyhonderich