California Congressman Ami Bera who represents the 7th District is still locked in a tight race against his Republican opponent Doug Ose and final results are yet to be declared.
But Bera finally pulled ahead a week after Election Day Nov. 4. He is upbeat about the possibility of defeating Ose in a replay of the 2012 race when he became a freshman congressman several days after voting day.
Bera is now at least 711 votes ahead of Ose according to election officials reporting results Nov. 12, according to the Sacramento Bee news report.
Bera now stands at 87,643 votes to Ose’s 86,932 in a race that remains too close to call. In his first race for Congress Bera faced similar odds against Republican incumbent Rep. Dan Lungren.
But ended up defeating him by a margin of 9,191 votes several days after Election Day when provisional and mail-in ballots were counted. He hopes to swing the same win this time round.
“On Election Day, I said that I was confident we’d win this election and I’m encouraged by the numbers released today,” Bera said in a Nov. 12 statement.
“We need to let the Registrar continue to count the remaining ballots, and we’re excited to see what the final margin will be.”
The Bera – Ose race is considered the most expensive race in the country with millions of outside money making its way into a district that is almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.
According to election officials quoted by the Bee, the contest now rests on an estimated 10,000 countrywide mail-in ballots and another 9,000 plus provisional ballots.
“This race is not going to be fully counted for up to another week,” Alice Jarboe, the assistant registrar of voters for Sacramento County is quoted saying in the Bee report.
There was a Friday (Nov. 14) update awaited as this went to press, but it was not going to include the more than 9,000 provisional ballots which according to Jarboa, would take up to half an hour each to research and decide upon.