It’s over: GOP Rep. Mike Garcia defeats Christy Smith for California’s 25th Congressional seat by 333 votes

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Saugus, has won a fresh term in Congress as the representative of northern Los Angeles County’s 25th Congressional District after a turbulent campaign that ended in a neck-and-neck race. Challenger Christy Smith conceded the election on Monday, Nov. 30.

Garcia won by a razor-thin 333 votes in a skirmish that went right down to the last day of canvassing by the registrar’s offices in L. A. and Ventura counties.

The L. A. County Registrar officially certified the county election on Monday evening, including its portion of the 25th district, which straddles the two counties. A total of 4,338,191 ballots were processed in all county races, and counted, with a huge turnout: 75.98% of eligible voters casting ballots in the county.

Next week, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to declare the election official.

“After four weeks of canvassing, every vote has been counted,” Garcia said in a statement. “Both Los Angeles County and Ventura County have officially certified the race today and have declared me the victor. I am once again honored to represent CA-25 during this pivotal time in our country’s history.”

The tally was 169,638 votes for Garcia and169,305 for Smith, according to a tabulation of results from the Ventura County Registrar and Los Angeles County Registrar.

Garcia acknowledged just how challenging it was to take on opponent Smith, who was not willing to concede as the vote count tallies when back and forth for weeks after the Nov. 3 election.

But on Monday night, the end came with Smith, the former Assemblywoman in the overlapping 38th state Assembly District, conceding that her campaign could not close the gap.

“This is not the end result we fought for, but I am proud of the strong, grassroots campaign we ran,” she said.

Smith said in recent weeks, the campaign’s attorneys reviewed the count of ballots and campaign volunteers pressed hard to “cure” hundreds of votes to make sure the registrar’s offices counted every vote.

“We exhausted every possible option, and did everything within our power to ensure that every voice in this election was heard. Nonetheless, we came up short,” she said.

The notably “purple” district has been trending Democrat in recent years. But its strong conservative roots were enough for many to give the nod to Garcia.

The political divide in the district did not appear to elude Garcia on Monday.

“My focus is on representing all constituents in CA-25,” he said. “In the short term, this means pushing to get federal relief to those who are most impacted by COVID (individuals and small businesses).”

Monday’s results bring to an end... (Read more)

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