(NewsNation) — Decision Desk HQ is watching two House races in California and the single House seat that represents Alaska.
As of Thursday afternoon, Republican incumbent Michelle Steel leads Democratic challenger Derek Tran by just 349 votes out of more than 300,000 votes cast in California’s 45th Congressional District, which is in Orange County.
“We still think there are tens of thousands of votes to be counted,” said Scott Tranter of Decision Desk HQ. He expects a lot of those votes to be counted Thursday night, but it still could be a couple of days before DDHQ can call that race.
In Central California, Republican incumbent John Duarte holds a two-point lead over Democrat Adam Gray in the 13th District. Tranter expects to make a call on that race in a day or so.
Alaska is a very different story, according to Tranter.
“This is ranked-choice voting. They count it a little differently. So, we get to do some very fancy math and wait for the state of Alaska to tell us exactly where this is going to shake out,” he said.
As of Thursday, Republican challenger Nick Begich has a three-point lead over Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola. Two other candidates account for about 5% of the vote in the race for Alaska’s single congressional district.
