On Saturday morning, liberal Democrat Harley Rouda proclaimed himself the winner in his hard-fought race against 30-year Republican U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in California’s 48th District (Orange County).
But Rohrabacher wasn’t conceding and The Associated Press was not calling a winner. This is a contest in which all ballots are most likely to be counted by the end of the month.
The initial count on Election Day (November 6) had Rohrabacher trailing attorney Rouda by 3,602 votes out of more than 186,000 cast.
As absentee votes began to be counted, Rouda’s lead grew to 7,328 out of more than 200,000 cast (or 51.8 to 49.2 percent) on Friday.
“And there are still roughly 80,000 votes from Dana’s district remaining to be counted,” California’s GOP National Committeeman Shawn Steel told Newsmax, “so no one’s going to call it now.”
Rohrabacher was on a family vacation in Maine with wife Rhonda and their three children and unavailable for comment.
Rohrabacher campaign manager Dale Neugebauer told reporters the congressman would have no comment on the ballot count until it’s finished at the end of the month.
“We expected this to be a close race and that we might have to endure California’s absurdly long ballot-counting process,” he said.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.