A fresh tally of ballots in California’s 23rd congressional district has brought the Republican incumbent’s advantage over Democrat Tessa Hodge down to about 1.5%. Of the latest batch of 13,872 votes processed, Hodge received 8,029, while Jay Obernolte received 5,843, reducing his total lead to 3,137 votes. Despite the shift, one projection gave Obernolte a 98% chance of retaining the seat, as analyst data shows the largest volume of remaining votes is located in the Republican-leaning area of Riverside.
The margin change occurs as California election officials process a backlog of roughly 3 million outstanding ballots from the general election. The lagging count has diminished Republican leads in six target House seats and left some counties with less than 50% of their votes tallied five days after the election. By comparison, Florida reported that 92% of its 8.27 million cast ballots were counted within one hour of the polls closing.
