As of Wednesday morning, Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes held on to a three-vote lead over Republican Bill Essayli in the race for California's 60th Assembly District.
Essayli led in early returns Tuesday night but Cervantes succeeded in getting additional crucial votes putting the competition at a close 26,731 votes to Essayli's 26,728 votes in results posted by the Riverside County Registrar of Voters Wednesday morning.
The next registrar update is scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday.
In the meantime, Riverside County still needs to process about 200,000 vote-by-mail ballots, 45,000 provisional ballots, and 5,000 damaged ballots.
“I am humbled by the tremendous support I received from 60th District voters," Essayli said in a statement. “Currently, the race is essentially tied and there are thousands of ballots remaining to count. We are monitoring the processing of the ballots to ensure every vote gets counted. I look forward to being the next Assemblyman for the 60th District.”
Essayli assisted in the effort to repeal the state's gas-tax increase while Cervantes was a key component in the passage of a transportation funding bill that raised the state gas tax by 12 cents a gallon.
Read more at The Press-Enterprise.
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