Garcia maintains lead; 2 other races remain close

With only 13 more days until the election will be certified, Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, leads Assemblywoman Christy Smith, D-Santa Clarita, in the race for the 25th Congressional District by a margin of 405 votes.

The race has been close since Election Day on Nov. 3.

As of Friday, Garcia has garnered 169,464 votes (50.06%) to Smith’s 169,059 votes (49.94%), a slim gap of 405 votes.

In addition to the congressional election, the races for the 21st

State Senate District and one seat on the Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency board also remain close heading into the holiday weekend.

For state Senate, Sen. Scott

Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, maintains his lead with 199,103 votes (50.8%) in comparison to his challenger Kipp Mueller, who

has 192,917 votes (49.2%) — a difference of 6,186 votes as of Friday.

In the race for the SCV Water Agency board of directors Division 3, incumbent BJ Atkins has led the race in which the top two of four candidates will win seats on the board. For the remaining seat, challenger Kathye Armitage holds 14,372 votes (24.31%), while incumbent Maria Gutzeit was close behind with 14,264 votes (24.13%). As of 2:40 p.m. on Friday, Armitage and Gutzeit were separated by only 108 votes.

On Friday, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan announced his 10th post-election results update, stating that, since the last update on Tuesday, 2,149 more vote-by-mail ballots had been processed countywide and a total of 144 vote center ballots had been processed since election night.

The total election results count is now 4,333,752, which is 75.90% of eligible Los Angeles County voters. The estimated number of outstanding ballots to be counted in L.A. County is now 33,045.

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla has until Dec. 11 to certify the elections within the state.