Four weeks after election day, first-term incumbent Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) has clinched a 333-vote victory over California Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D) in the state’s 25th congressional district.
The race concluded this week as Smith conceded a recount was unlikely to overturn the verdict, the Santa Clara Signal and other state newspapers reported.
“We exhausted every possible option, and did everything in our power to ensure that every voice in this election was heard,” Smith said on her Twitter page. “Nevertheless, we came up short.” In a subsequent Tweet on Tuesday, Smith encouraged supporters by posting a clip of Terminator movie character Sarah Connor, saying “I’ll be back.”
The tally posted on the California Secretary of State’s website shows Garcia with 169,638 votes, edging out Smith who finished with 169,305.
“After four weeks of canvassing, every vote has been counted,” Garcia said Monday on his campaign website. “Both Los Angeles County and Ventura County have officially certified the race today and have declared me the victor,” Garcia said, adding he was honored to represent the district.
Remediation of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a 2,700-acre property in Ventura County used for decades to research rocket-engines is a big issue locally. While most of the land is controlled by Boeing and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Energy leased about 450 acres of the land for nuclear research. The DOE and the state of California in November reached a deal on tearing down the final eight buildings controlled by the department.
The final result makes it twice in less than seven months that Garcia has defeated Smith. Garcia, a former U.S. Navy pilot and Raytheon employee, also won a special election in May with 55% of the vote to claim the open seat created by the resignation of Rep. Katie Hill (D), who resigned in November 2019 after acknowledging an affair with a former campaign staffer. Garcia serves on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.
