Election update: David Valadao holds onto lead; when will Fresno County certify results?
About a week before election certifications are due for San Joaquin Valley counties, a few hundred ballots remain to be counted, according to elections officials.
One of the closest races in the Fresno County region — the U.S. House 21st District race between incumbent Rep. T.J. Cox and David Valadao — has not been called by the Associated Press.
The AP has been the expert on calling presidential, congressional and other races since 1848.
Republican challenger Valadao of Hanford has a 1,820-vote lead over Fresno Democrat Cox, according to the California Secretary of State.
Fresno County Registrar of Voters Brandi Orth said she expects to be done with the county’s votes and ready to certify them on Friday. An unspecified number of votes that need fixes on their signatures remain to be counted.
Kings County, where Valadao has had his strongest showing, has a few more than 400 ballots left to process, according to elections staff.
Fewer than 2,000 votes remain to be tallied in Tulare County, according to the staffers’ last report, but only a sliver of voters in the county are in the 21st District.
The 21st seat dips into Kern County, mostly in the Bakersfield area. The ballots remaining to be counted there on Wednesday were unclear.
With the number of votes left to count dwindling, the lead was enough to call the race on Friday for Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report and NBC News contributor.
Valley counties are expected to certify votes by Dec. 3. The state’s deadline is Dec. 11.
President
The latest Fresno County results show President-elect Joe Biden receiving 53% of the vote and President Donald Trump getting 45%.
Merced County also supported Biden. Trump won Kern, Kings, Madera and Tulare counties.
