Democratic challenger Derek Tran pulled ahead of Republican Rep. Michelle Steel for the first time over the weekend in the 45th Congressional District race — after initially trailing by thousands of votes.
The consumer rights attorney and co-owner of a pharmacy with his wife Michelle is currently 36 votes ahead of the two-term incumbent — the vote count sits at 152,981 (D)-152,945 (R) as of Sunday, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.
Both candidates were at exactly 50.0% Sunday.
The 45th congressional district straddles Orange County and Los Angeles County. Tran trails by a percentage point in the Orange County portion of the district, 138,320- 134,168, 50.8%-49.2%, but leads in the Los Angeles County portion — Artesia, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, and a portion of Lakewood — 18,813-14,625, 56.3%- 43.7%.
Only previously unprocessed ballots in Orange County were counted Saturday.
No counting is scheduled in either Orange County or Los Angeles County Sunday and is set to resume Monday.
Tran trailed by 58 votes entering Saturday’s resumption of counting. He trailed by 11,363 votes Nov. 6, 7,590 Nov. 8, 6,901 Nov. 9, 6,128 last Sunday when only ballots from the Los Angeles County portion of the district were counted, 3,908 Monday, 2,227 Tuesday, 349 Wednesday, and 236 Thursday before finally pulling ahead over the weekend.
It is not known how many ballots remain to be counted in the race.
City News Service contributed to this report.
