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The
outcome of those races - and how much they add to the Democrats'
majority in the newly constituted House - may be uncertain for
weeks to come because of mail-in and provisional balloting
systems that California introduced in recent years to boost
voter participation.
According to the latest projections by media outlets and data
provider DDHQ, Democrats have achieved a net gain of 32 House
seats nationwide.
California election results tallied as of Wednesday do not
account for millions of outstanding ballots still to be
processed statewide. Many were mailed by voters to local
registrar offices by Tuesday's deadline but have yet to be
delivered.
In Orange County alone, well over 400,0000 votes remained left
to be counted, more than half of them mail-in ballots, according
to data provided by the county registrar's office on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of provisional ballots for voters who waited
until election day to register also are outstanding.
State returns on Wednesday showed Rohrabacher, a 13-term
congressman in coastal Orange County in Southern California,
trailing his Democratic challenger, Harley Rouda, a real estate
entrepreneur and former Republican, by fewer than 3,000 votes -
or 49.3 percent to 50.7 percent.
Rouda, whose lead improved slightly on Thursday to 51 percent,
versus 49 percent for Rohracher, estimated that 70,000 ballots
remained to be counted in the district.
Rouda said he was "cautiously optimistic" that "our lead will
hold and in all likelihood will increase" when all votes are in,
but said he would hold off on any announcements for at least
several days.
The Rohrabacher campaign did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
The Rohrabacher-Rouda race has stood out nationally in part
because of the incumbent's reputation for unabashedly
pro-Russian views, widely seen as once putting him on a
short-list for consideration as President Donald Trump's
secretary of state.
Rohrabacher's seat is one of several held by a Republican in a
California district that supported Democrat Hillary Clinton over
Trump in the 2016 presidential election or was otherwise seen as
vulnerable to flipping Democrat.
That race and three others in the state where Democrats were
seeking to pick up a Republican seat were either still in play
or, as was the cases in two districts, leaning so heavily toward
Democrats that they had claimed victory.
However, Republican incumbents appeared to have garnered
comfortable leads in at least three other House races in
Southern California that Democrats had viewed as up for grabs.
Among them was Duncan Hunter, who has pleaded not guilty to
felony corruption charges but managed to defeat Ammar
Campa-Najjar, a former Obama administration aide of Mexican and
Palestinian heritage.
No races will be certified for at least a month, the time
election officials are given to complete their "official
canvass" of all votes. They have until Dec. 7 to report final
results to the California secretary of state, who then will have
another week to officially declare winners.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; editing by Bill Tarrant, Rosalba
O'Brienand Leslie Adler)
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