California Voter Foundation

There are still two U.S. House seats in California that remain "too close to call". In Southern California's CD 45, Republican incumbent Michelle Steele has seen her lead over Democratic challenger Derek Tran shrink from a high of 5.1 percent the morning after Election Day to 0.02 percent as of Friday. This amounts to just 58 ballots separating the two candidates, with an estimated 151,000 ballots remaining to process in the counties that are home to this district.

Hi Folks,

Many California congressional and legislative races remain too close to call. CVF's Close Count Transparency Project is tracking eleven congressional races, the outcome of which will help decide which party controls the House of Representatives next year. Six close legislative races are included in the CVF tracker as well. 

While the Presidential Election has already been decided, there are many contests in California that are still too close to call. CVF's new Close Count Transparency Project launched last night and we are tracking eleven congressional races, the outcome of which will help decide which party controls the House of Representatives next year. Additional close legislative races are being added to the CVF tracker.

Please see CVF's Close Count Report #1, summarizing election night and morning after election results. The story so far is that while several Democratic candidates in contested districts were doing well on Election Night, the numbers changed overnight as more ballots were processed and by morning Republican candidates were overall doing better than the Democrats.

To help the public monitor results in California’s close elections, the California Voter Foundation (CVF) is launching the Close Count Transparency Project, online at www.calvoter.org/closecount.

Beginning November 5th and continuing until the county certification deadline on December 5th, CVF will provide daily updates on the status of vote counts in California’s most competitive political districts, providing a timely and trustworthy source of vital election information.

“The process of verifying and counting California ballots takes longer today than it used to, largely due to the expanded use of vote-by-mail balloting,” said CVF President Kim Alexander, the project’s director, noting that since 2020, all registered voters automatically receive a vote-by-mail ballot.  “In close contests, determining winners can take days or even weeks. CVF’s Close Count Transparency Project will give the public, media, and campaigns a clearer picture, day-by-day, of how many ballots have been counted, how many ballots remain to be counted, and the margin of difference between the two candidates.”

The project will incorporate data from unofficial election results posted on state and local election agency websites and will initially track seven California congressional contests widely viewed as the state’s most competitive. The outcome of these contests will help decide whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives after the election. 

In 2022, CVF launched a pilot project tracking results in the same seven congressional districts. Three (CD 13, CD 22 and CD 41) feature a rematch this year of the same 2022 candidates. The 2022 tracking sheet is also available to view and shows how CD 13’s margin was incredibly close throughout the 2022 count, ranging from 0.1 to 0.7 percent, and was ultimately decided more than three weeks after Election Day by less than 600 votes.