More than a week after the Nov. 3 elections, a California Congressional race with implications for the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex remains undecided.
With 86% of the votes counted and more than 330,000 votes cast, incumbent Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), who won a special election in May to claim the open seat, leads Christy Smith (D) by a little more than 200 votes, according to the Associated Press.
The district covers northern Los Angeles County and a portion of Ventura County. Ventura County is where the Santa Susana Field Laboratory cleanup site is located.
Garcia, a former Raytheon employee, defeated Smith, a California Assembly member, during the special election to determine the successor to Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.), a first-term incumbent who resigned in November after acknowledging an affair with a former campaign staffer.
Meanwhile, in Nevada’s 3rd congressional district, first-term incumbent Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), appears to have defeated challenger Daniel Rodimer (R), a businessman and former professional wrestler. However, this election’s winner remains undecided due to a lawsuit, according to the Ballotpedia website.
Rodimer filed suit against the Nevada secretary of state and the Clark County elections board in U.S. District Court for Nevada, alleging election infractions. A hearing was held by phone on Friday Nov. 6, but no documentation from the session was filed online at deadline Friday for Weapons Complex Monitor.
With 100% of the vote apparently counted, the Associated Press lists Lee with 49.2% and Rodimer with 45.5%, with the rest split between a Libertarian and an Independent candidate. The district is home to the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site.
Major media outlets covering the separate vote tallies from the 50 states of the union last week declared former Vice President Joe Biden (D) president-elect. When media called Arizona for Biden Thursday, the challenger’s electoral margin rose to 306 votes, compared with incumbent President Donald Trump (R)’s 232. Whoever 270 of the 538 available electoral votes wines the election.
So, pending any recounts and ongoing legal appeals, Biden will be sworn in Jan. 20. So far, however, the Trump administration’s General Services Administration has declined to cooperate with Biden’s transition team. Customarily, the incumbent administration provides funds, office space, and briefings for the incoming team.
The conservative Las-Vegas Review Journal said in an editorial this week that the Trump administration’s maneuvers will only delay the inevitable, and that “rhetoric from Trump surrogates alleging widespread illegal activity has been devoid of detailed evidence supporting the charge that there was a concerted effort to ‘steal’ the election through corruption.”
