Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R.-CA., still refused to concede defeat Monday until the remaining 30,000 absentee ballots in California’s 48th District (Orange County) were counted.
But even diehard Rohrabacher supporters who talked to Newsmax agreed that it was now impossible for the 30-year incumbent to overcome the lead of roughly 10,000 votes by Democrat Harley Rouda.
“Dana was down 8,500 votes Election Night and the [margin of defeat] kept growing as the absentee ballots were counted,” California’s GOP National Committeeman Shawn Steel, one of Rohrabacher’s closest friends, told Newsmax, “It doesn’t look good.”
“There was no one outstanding reason for Dana’s defeat,” Orange County pollster Adam Probolsky told us, “He had been in Congress 30 years and that wasn’t helpful in 2018. And his repeated defense of Vladimir Putin was probably very harmful. But overall, I think the candidacy of a wealthy businessman [Rouda] who didn’t have that kind of baggage was a winning alternative.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, go here now.
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