Congressman Josh Harder ahead against GOP challenger in California battleground
Rep. Josh Harder jumped to a lead in early returns Tuesday for his reelection bid against Republican challenger Ted Howze, with 62% of the votes recorded as of 9:20 p.m. favoring the Democratic incumbent.
“With about a third of the ballots counted it’s great to have a lead of over 20,000 votes — it sure feels better than being down over 4,000 like I was two years ago,” Harder said. “This process will take some time but I’m practicing some patience and encourage everyone else to do the same.”
The district, originally expected to be one of the top congressional fights for California Democrats and Republicans in 2020, has been favored for Harder since May, when offensive social media posts surface on Howze’s accounts.
The social media posts included content such as comparing young immigrants to pedophiles, saying Muslims cannot be good Americans and questioning the cultural priorities of Black Americans. Most of them were on Howze’s personal Facebook page. Howze deleted the posts after reporters brought them to light and denied he wrote them, but refused to name who else would have written them.
(See updated Stanislaus County results of all races)
The national and state Republican parties then abandoned the race, pulling endorsements from Howze. He still held on to some local Republican support, though some local Republicans pulled their endorsements as well.
That left Howze to fund his own way. And while he raised nearly $1.5 million, more than half of that money was in loans he gave to his own campaign. The campaign is now underwater, with about $62,000 in cash on hand and $295,000 in debt as of mid-October, according to the latest Federal Election Commission reports.
Harder, meanwhile, raised $7 million as of mid-October and still had nearly $4 million in cash on hand and no debts, according to FEC reports.
The district remains one of the few remaining in California that both parties view as competitive. Harder won the district from former Republican Rep. Jeff Denham in 2018, the year when a blue wave flipped seven Republican congressional seats in California to Democratic control. Earlier this year, Republicans took one of those seats back in a special election.
The prospect of no immediate winner in this race is an expected one — the majority of votes in California this year are expected to come from mail-in ballots, and officials have 17 days after Election Day to continue counting ballots, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Even in the 2018 election, without the problem of COVID-19, it took elections officials days to announce Harder’s win.
Results aren’t officially due until 30 days after Election Day in California, though it’s unlikely it will take race watchers until then to declare the winner. But early returns did show Harder up significantly over Howze.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 9:29 PM.
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