District 21 has just been "called" by the AP with 97% of the 170,000 votes counted and the Republican candidate ahead by 1 full percentage point. Kind of a dangerous call given that two years ago, the Republican candidate, this year's winner, was "called" soon after the polls closed leading by about 6,000 votes out of the nearly 175,000 votes that could potentially be counted.
Again, it is November 28 and they are still counting. In 2018, the votes that came in late, some of them "harvested" (and if you don't know what that is, look it up), which were nearly all for the Democratic challenger. Then, the Democrat, Cox, won by 862 votes.
Seems like there should have been an investigation, but since the Democrat "won" in California, that was not going to happen.
This time, "harvesting" was not supposed to happen. Valadao, the Republican, was ahead by 52.1% on November 8. Now, he is ahead by 50.5% to 49.5%. Well, this is a bit misleading as Ricardo (Ricky) de la Fuente received 7,309 votes as of November 4, or a bit more than 4% of the current vote total. I was unable to find any reference to Ricky recently.
You might know of Ricky or his dad, Roque (Rocky). Ricky ran in a bunch of primaries, and in three Congressional races--The aforementioned California 21st District which is in the agricultural Central Valley around Fresno despite his birth and residence in San Diego; in Florida's 24th Congressional District (he was defeated in that primary); and in the Texas 27th District where he lost in the November election. We live in the 27th District, and he received 35% of the vote despite...well, despite!!
Rocky ran in a whole bunch of primaries, several Congressional races and for President He received about 60,000 votes for President from the voters in California.
There were eight Congressional elections in California (out of the 53 seats) that were not "called" on election night or soon after. All eight were where Republicans led. Eventually, seven of the eight have been called for the Republican. The eighth seat is very close...
Back to Ricky and Rocky. Why are they running? I wonder if it is because of deep affection for the people of Texas, California (and elsewhere) that they want to serve? Or, is it because they saw that someone could graduate near the bottom of his law school class, start as a Representative in a very small state, like Delaware, move up to the Senate and serve for 47 years, becoming a multi-millionaire in the process? I wonder if they saw Congress as a ticket to millionaire status?
Anyway, despite the reluctance to call any election in California for a Republican, the Republicans flipped 11 seats in Congress nationally, three of those in California with another Republican leading.
Most states have some sort of residency requirement to run for these kinds of offices. Texas does not. Apparently, Florida does not. Wondering if that might be something to fix?
