Live CA District 14 Special Election Results: Polls Close, Vote Count Could Take Days

UPDATE: As of 8:50 p.m. Tuesday, State Sen. Aisha Wahab got off to an early but slight lead over Bay Area Rapid Transit Board President Melissa Hernandez, according to preliminary tallies. With 59 percent of the vote counted, Wahab garnered 51.3 percent to Hernandez's 48.7 percent.

ORIGINAL POST: With State Sen. Aisha Wahab off to an early but slight lead over Bay Area Rapid Transit Board President Melissa Hernandez, in the Special Election to finish disgraced former Congressman Eric Swalwell's term Tuesday night, the outcome remains to close to call.

Wahab, a progressive who entered the race with the endorsement of the California Democratic Party, had 51.3 percent of the vote to Hernandez's 48.7 percent with just 59 percent of votes tallied, according to the California Secretary of State.

Regardless of the final tally, the two Democrats will continue to duke it out until the November midterms as they both seek to represent District 14 for a full two-year term. Tuesday's victor will serve four months to complete the term the embattled Dublin politician resigned due to sexual assault allegations in the midst of his campaign for governor.

The race was marked by a torrent of outside spending. Groups with ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, spent millions in support of Hernandez, The Washington Post reported.

Hernandez had defended Israel's right to respond to the October 7 attack, while Wahab, the first Muslim elected to state Senate, has criticized the War in Gaza as genocide.

RELATED: Swalwell Admitted To Sex With Suspected Chinese Spy, Newly Declassified Documents Show

AP has yet to call the race, and "will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap."

In Alameda County, the first vote update of the night usually includes only results from mail voting, but the county typically still has a sizable number of mail ballots left to tally by the next morning.

In the June 16 special primary, the AP first reported results at 11:17 p.m. ET, or 17 minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 1:03 a.m. ET, with about 87% of total votes counted. The vote count reached 99.9% complete at 7:26 p.m. ET on June 18.

Wahab led the way during the June 16 special election, taking 38.2% of all votes. Hernandez, meanwhile, beat out Republican Wendy Huang by just over 6,000 votes to advance to the general election against Wahab.

Wahab also placed first in the June 2 primary for the full-term seat to replace Swalwell, who has denied the accusations against him.

Regardless of who wins Tuesday's election, the 14th Congressional seat will remain under Democratic control.

There are about 423,000 registered voters in the 14th Congressional District, which includes Hayward, Livermore, Pleasanton and Union City, as well as parts of San Leandro, Fremont and Dublin.

Only 124,000 voters cast ballots in the June 16 special primary. As of Wednesday, about 52,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, about 32,500 from Democrats, about 7,800 from Republicans and the remainder were from unaffiliated or third-party voters.

The winner of the race will serve under the current district boundaries before again competing for a slightly redrawn district for a full term that begins in January 2027.

The boundaries of the 14th Congressional District were redrawn as part of a new congressional map approved by voters in a 2025 statewide ballot measure known as Proposition 50. The map goes into effect for the full-term seat in January.

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AP News and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.