Election results: California may determine control of the House; Calvert-Rollins race too close to call

This is what they call a nail-biter, folks.

With Democrats managing to hang on to control of the U.S. Senate following votes tallied this weekend, all eyes have shifted to the U.S. House — and to California, which could end up determining the balance of power in Congress and the political direction of the country.

With 218 House seats needed for a majority, Republicans had secured 212 and Democrats 204 as of Sunday, according to the Associated Press. But 19 races remained too close to call — including 12 in California.

One of the state's closest races — which has gained more national attention as House races elsewhere were called — is between GOP Rep. Ken Calvert and Democrat Will Rollins in a district that covers parts of the Coachella Valley, including Palm Springs.

Calvert was leading with roughly 51.55% of the vote, versus 48.45% for Rollins, according to an update Monday night from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters. They were separated by ‭5,489‬ votes.

Calvert declared victory following Monday's update, thanking Riverside County voters for "once again choosing me to be their voice in the U.S. House of Representatives."

"This election demonstrated that Riverside County voters are more interested in people serious about solving our challenges, than personal politics. In the end, it’s clear that voters sent a strong message rejecting the gutter politics of lies and personal attacks from an out-of-town extremist liberal," Calvert wrote in a statement on Monday evening.

A representative of Rollins' campaign couldn't be immediately reached on Monday evening. On Sunday night, Rollins urged patience as the registrar's office counted votes.

"I remain optimistic that we’ll prevail. With at least 111,000 vote-by-mail and 10,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Riverside County, there’s still a lot of counting ahead of us. We always knew this race would be close, so while I know it’s frustrating to wait, that’s what we all have to do," Rollins wrote in a Facebook post following Sunday's update. 

Roughly 94,000 ballots across Riverside County still had to be processed as of Monday, though it's unclear exactly how many of those outstanding votes are in the 41st Congressional District. Another update was expected Tuesday night.

More: Updated election results in Riverside County

Dave Wasserman, an analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, noted Saturday night that Calvert extending his lead over the weekend was good news for Republicans aiming to flip the House.

"Dem path to majority gets extremely tough without this race in their column," Wasserman said in a tweet.

In three Golden State contests, including that one for California's 41st Congressional District, candidates were within 3 percentage points of each other as of Sunday night, CalMatters’ live results tracker shows.

The two other closest races as of Sunday night were between Democratic Rep. Katie Porter and Republican Scott Baugh in Orange County, and between Republican farmer John Duarte and Democratic Assemblymember Adam Gray for a newly created district anchored in Modesto.

Other gaps weren’t much larger: In the Central Valley, for example, Republican Rep. David Valadao was about 5 percentage points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Assemblymember Rudy Salas.

Although the Democratic Party’s unexpectedly strong national showing suggests predictions of a Republican “red wave” were largely overblown, the party is unlikely to flip some GOP-held California congressional seats if current ballot trends persist, Nate Cohn, the New York Times’ chief political analyst, tweeted Saturday.

Regardless of which party ends up in control of the House, a Californian is in line to take the helm: either current Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, or Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a Bakersfield Republican.

Pelosi said in a Sunday interview with ABC that she doesn’t plan to leave Congress, but declined to share whether she intends to seek a leadership position: “I’m not making any comments until this election is finished, and we have a little more time to go.”

Meanwhile, if McCarthy were to ascend to the speakership — a path his party will be asked to affirm Tuesday in an internal vote — he would face the sizable challenge of contending with former President Donald Trump’s increasingly divisive influence on the Republican Party.

The election may also pose a conundrum for Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose path to higher office could be stymied by results seemingly contradicting his repeated assertion that the Democratic Party is getting “crushed on narrative,” argues Wall Street Journal columnist James Freeman.

The Desert Sun staff writers Tom Coulter and Erin Rode contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Election results: California may determine control of the House