Central Valley Democratic challenger Adam Gray takes lead in last uncalled House race

The latest batch of ballots moved the Democratic challenger into the lead in a Central Valley congressional district, the last House race in the nation that hasn’t been called.

The updated count Wednesday morning in District 13 had Democrat Adam Gray with 104,503 votes and Republican incumbent John Duarte with 104,321. Ninety-nine percent of the ballots had been counted, according to the Associated Press.

It was the first time that Gray had held the lead.

The two men ran against each other for the seat in 2022, and the race was tight then, too: Duarte won by 564 votes.

The district includes parts of the counties of Merced, Madera, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Fresno. Both men have backgrounds in family agricultural businesses, and Gray was an Assembly member from 2012 to 2022.

On Wednesday afternoon, the state’s other uncalled House race — District 45, in Los Angeles and Orange counties — was officially called by the Associated Press for Democratic challenger Derek Tran. The tally, with 99% of the ballots counted, was 157,960 for Tran and 157,347 for Republican incumbent Michelle Steel. Because of the tightness of the race, both candidates had asked donors to finance a possible recount.

It was the second congressional seat in California that flipped from Republican to Democrat in these elections: George Whitesides took a northern Los Angeles County district from incumbent Mike Garcia.

The seven California House districts in which no incumbent was running were all won by a candidate of the previous representative’s party:

• • 12: Lateefa Simon (D), replacing Barbara Lee
  • 16: Sam Liccardo (D), replacing Anna Eshoo
  • 20: Vince Fong (R), replacing Kevin McCarthy
  • 29: Luz Rivas (D), replacing Tony Cárdenas
  • 30: Laura Friedman (D), replacing Adam Schiff
  • 31: Gil Cisneros (D), replacing Grace Napolitano
  • 47: Dave Min (D), replacing Katie Porter