In the race to determine who the representative for the California 52nd Congressional District will be, Democrat Scott Peters saw his razor thin lead over incumbent Republican Brian Bilbray grow to 1,334 votes as the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office continued to tally the remaining absentee and mail-in ballots.
Peters is poised to become the third Democratic representative from the San Diego region, joining Susan Davis and Juan Vargas, who won his race to replace incoming San Diego Mayor Bob Filner in the 51st District. Bilbray, who replaced the disgraced Duke Cunningham in the 50th District in a 2006 special election, was redistricted into a more heavily Democratic 52nd District after the 2010 midterm elections. It would be his second loss since being replaced in the 2000 election by Susan Davis.
As of 4:30pm Friday, there were still approximately 325,000 mail and provisional ballots remaining to be counted in San Diego County, according to the Registrar’s office (not all of which were eligible to vote in the 52nd District). The latest available count showed Peters with 110,825 votes to Bilbray’s 109,491.
The San Diego Free Press will continue to provide updates as the vote count continues to come in.