Democrat Jerry McNerney declared himself the victor Wednesday in
the election for the 11th Congressional District, though challenger
Republican David Harmer has not conceded. The announcement came
after updated ballot totals gave incumbent McNerney a 1,681 vote
lead over Harmer, who said there were too many votes yet to count
to concede defeat.
Morgan Hill – Democrat Jerry McNerney declared himself the victor Wednesday in the election for the 11th Congressional District, though challenger Republican David Harmer has not conceded. The announcement came after updated ballot totals gave incumbent McNerney a 1,681 vote lead over Harmer, who said there were too many votes yet to count to concede defeat.
Among the new numbers released Wednesday night were results from nearly 30,000 vote-by-mail ballots collected in San Joaquin County, where the majority of voters in the 11th Congressional District live.
Together, tallies from the four counties in the district gave McNerney 47.75 percent of the 231,254 votes cast. Harmer received 47.02 percent of the vote. American Independent Party candidate David Christensen received 5.11 percent of the vote. Election officials have not declared a winner.
“With the vast majority of votes tallied, the results are clear. Congressman McNerney now has an insurmountable lead,” according to a statement from McNerney’s campaign manager, Doug Greven.
Harmer’s campaign released a statement saying he has not conceded. When Election Day returns showed Harmer with a lead of thousands of votes, it was too soon to declare victory, Harmer said in the statement.
“That is still the case tonight. Just as it would have been premature to claim victory then, it would be premature to concede defeat now.”
Harmer did take the lead early Nov. 2, but as returns came in through the night, McNerney took a 121-vote lead. The lead grew to 2,269 votes by the end of the day Tuesday as Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties gave updated counts.
The fourth county in the district, San Joaquin County, did not update its total until Wednesday evening. There, Harmer clawed back about 800 votes, not enough to close the gap.
Observers from both campaigns have been watching the process as tens of thousands of mail-in ballots – often called absentee ballots – have been processed in the four counties.
All counties in the state have until the end of the month to finish counting, and there are more ballots to be counted.
There were at least 45,000 provisional ballots left to count in the four counties as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
The campaigns could ask for a recount after all the counties report their numbers to the state. But a recount might not overcome the end result, if the margin stayed close to the gap Wednesday between the two candidates.
“You’re not going to make up 1,500 votes in a recount,” San Joaquin County Registrar of Voters Austin Erdman said after releasing the county’s results.
