Another GOP incumbent ousted in Calif. House race
Uncertainty clouds elections in Fla., Ga. as recounts continue
LOS ANGELES — First-time candidate Josh Harder defeated fourterm Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham following an updated vote count Tuesday, giving Democrats their fourth pickup of a GOP House seat in California.
Harder, 32, a venture capitalist, had anchored his campaign to Denham’s vote against the Affordable Care Act, while arguing that he would push for universal health care in Congress. He also argued that Denham and other Washington Republicans ignored poverty and health care in the agricultural 10th District in California’s Central Valley.
With votes continuing to be counted, Harder’s edge has grown after Denham grabbed a slim lead on Election Day. After the latest update, Harder had a 4,919-vote lead out of about 185,000 votes counted, a margin too large for the congressman to overcome with remaining votes.
The 51-year-old Denham had depicted Harder as a liberal, Silicon Valley insider whose values were more closely aligned with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi than a district known for producing cherries and almonds. An ad he posted on Twitter labeled Harder “extreme.”
The contest was one of a string of showcase battles in California in Republican districts that were targeted by Democrats after Hillary Clinton carried them in the 2016 presidential election.
Denham’s seat is the fourth of those districts picked up by Democrats since Election Day. Two other contests remain too close to call.
For state Republicans, Denham’s defeat marked another setback in a state where the party has been drifting toward irrelevance for years. Democrats hold every statewide office, a supermajority in both chambers of the Legislature and a 3.7-million advantage in voter registrations.
With Harder’s win, Democrats will hold at least a 43-10 edge in California U.S. House seats.
Other Republican incumbents in California to lose this year include 15-term Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in the 48th District in Orange County, and Rep. Steve Knight in the 25th District, north of Los Angeles. Democrats also picked up the San Diego-area seat of retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa.
Georgia: After two federal court rulings and a flurry of legal filings over a 24-hour period, uncertainty still hangs over Georgia’s midterm elections, including the still undecided race for governor.
Unofficial results in one of the nation’s hottest midterm contests give Republican Brian Kemp a slim majority. But Democrat Stacey Abrams maintains that enough uncounted absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots remain to force a Dec. 4 runoff and keep alive her bid to become the first black woman in American history to be elected governor of a state.
In the week since voters went to the polls, arguments over certain provisional and absentee ballots have been presented at a dizzying pace before several different judges in federal court.
Among them was a lawsuit filed Sunday by Abrams’ campaign seeking an extension by one day of the deadline for county election officials to certify their results. As a hearing drew to a close just before the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones said he wouldn’t extend the deadline because all the counties had likely already certified their results or were about to, and there were other protections in place.
The secretary of state’s office system was showing that all but 16 of the state’s 159 counties had certified their results by Tuesday evening, spokeswoman Candice Broce said in an email.
Jones said he hopes to rule on the other requests from Abrams’ campaign by noon Wednesday.
Meanwhile, protesters, including a state senator, were arrested Tuesday during a demonstration at the Georgia Capitol calling for uncounted ballots to be tallied.
“I’m being arrested because I refused to leave the floor of this building where I’m a state senator,” State Sen. Nikema Williams said as she was escorted from the building. “I wasn’t yelling. I wasn’t chanting. I was standing peacefully beside constituents I represent.”
The Georgia Department of Public Safety said a total of 15 people were arrested on charges of disrupting orderly conduct of official business and were taken to the Fulton County Jail.