Hurtado increases lead, Janz closes slightly on Nunes with thousands of ballots left
Several central San Joaquin Valley counties updated their election results Friday, bringing the margins of several close and not-so-close races into a clearer focus.
No results changed in the state and district races, but the top performers in several close races opened up larger leads.
Nearly 91,000 ballots remain to be counted in Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Madera counties.
State Senate
Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, a Democrat, increased her lead to more than 4,000 votes over Madera County Supervisor Rob Poythress, a Republican, in the 12th District. In terms of percentage of the vote, she jumped from 50.5 percent to 51.6 percent.
On Saturday, Poythress conceded.
In the 14th District, Sanger City Councilwoman and Democrat Melissa Hurtado increased her lead over Republican incumbent Andy Vidak from 3,000 votes to about 4,000.
The Hurtado-Vidak race numbers do not reflect any changes in Tulare County, which did not update its totals as originally planned Friday night. There are still around 50,000 outstanding ballots. About half of Tulare County is in this Senate district.
The races are of particular significance, as Democratic victories would almost assure a party super-majority in the Senate.
Congress
The margins for central San Joaquin Valley congressional seats remained more or less the same.
Rep. David Valadao still holds an eight-point lead over TJ Cox.
Rep. Jim Costa opened his lead slightly over Elizabeth Heng. He now has 55 percent of the vote to her 45 percent.
Andrew Janz closed the gap on Rep. Devin Nunes by about two percentage points. Nunes has 55 percent of the vote to Janz’s 45 percent.
These changes do not include Tulare County.
Fresno County
About 23,000 of the 100,000 remaining ballots were counted and included in a Friday update from the Fresno County Clerk’s office. The next update on the remaining 77,000 votes will come Wednesday at 3 p.m.
Most of the Fresno city election margins remained the same.
Measure P, the parks initiative, sits at 49 percent “yes” to 51 percent “no.” It needs 66 percent to pass.
Nelson Esparza opened up his lead over Brian Whelan slightly (59 percent to 41 percent) in the Fresno City Council District 7 race.
The District 3 margin remained the same, with Miguel Arias leading Tate Hill 58 percent to 42 percent. As did the District 5 race, with Luis Chavez earning 62 percent to Paula Yang’s 38 percent.
Madera County
Madera County got through about 4,000 of its 10,000 outstanding ballots for Friday’s update. The next update will be Wednesday.
Kings County
In Kings County, about 1,300 of the 9,000 remaining ballots were counted.
Tulare County
Tulare County had planned an election update for Friday night, but it had not been posted as of 6:30 p.m.
Rory Appleton: 559-441-6015, @RoryDoesPhonics
This story was originally published November 9, 2018 at 6:52 PM.