Where tight Merced-area races stand, 10 days after midterms. How many votes remain uncounted?

Ten days after the midterm elections, there are still remaining votes to count in several Valley counties, including Merced.

As of 5:10 p.m. Friday, the Secretary of State’s office reports there are 1,313 votes left to count in Merced County.

Local officials have said they expect those votes to be counted next week. Elections officials have until Dec. 8 to certify the results.

Merced County’s numbers pale in comparison to Stanislaus County, which still has 31,809 outstanding votes to count. Fresno County has 2,600 votes left to count as of Friday, Madera County has 200 votes left to count, Tulare County has 2,359 left, and San Joaquin County has 28,830 votes.

Among local races, Fresno City Councilmember Esmeralda Soria continues to hold a slim, but increasingly safe-looking, lead over former Merced County sheriff Mark Pazin in their contentious contest to represent the 27th Assembly District in the California Legislature.

After updated election returns Friday afternoon from Fresno and Madera counties, Democrat Soria has 44,784 votes, or 51.2%, while Republican Mark Pazin, the former sheriff of Merced County, has 42,734, or 48.8%. The margin of about 2,050 votes is only a slight change from midweek totals.

The 27th District includes portions of Fresno, Merced and Madera counties. Across all three counties, regardless of district, there remain a total of about 3,300 ballots left for election officials to process and count.

For Pazin to make up the difference on Soria, not only would the lion’s share of those unprocessed ballots need to come from voters in the 27th District, but Pazin would have to garner the vast majority of them.

13th Congressional District still a tight race

One North Valley race that remains very much in doubt is in the 13th Congressional District. That hotly-contested election pitted longtime state Assemblymember Adam Gray, D-Merced, against Republican businessman and farmer John Duarte of Hughson.

Since Election Night on Nov. 8, the lead has see-sawed back and forth between the two men, and at no time has the margin even reached one percentage point.

That didn’t change after Friday’s updates from Fresno and Madera counties, which make up part of the district along with Merced County and portions of San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.

Duarte now has 63,539 votes, or 50.3% of votes counted to date, compared to 62,674 for Gray – a margin of 865 votes or six-tenths of a percentage point.

The California Secretary of State’s office reported Friday that Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties together still have more than 60,000 ballots yet to process and count. But it is unclear how many of those ballots are from voters in the 13th District.

The 13th remains closely watched nationwide because a Duarte victory would add to the narrow margin that the Republican Party has now secured in the U.S. House of Representatives, while a win for Gray would strengthen the Democrats’ position as the minority party.

In addition to the multi-county races for the Assembly and House of Representatives, the newest update from Fresno County helped to solidify the results in a slew of local contests from the Nov. 8 midterm general election.

City Council and other local races

It remains to be seen whether the outstanding votes in Merced County will have any impact on the District 6 Merced City Council race.

In that contest, Fue Xiong remains ahead of incumbent Delray Shelton, 1,712 to 1,582 votes respectively. District 6 covers much of the Merced north of Yosemite Avenue.

Shelton, who first took office in 2018, is a lieutenant in the Merced County Sheriff’s Office assigned to administrative services. Xiong is an engineer for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

As of Monday, the Merced County Registrar’s Office had 54,850 votes counted out of 124,665 registered voters. showing voter turnout at about 44%. Elections officials have until Dec. 8 to certify the results.

Meanwhile, in District 2, which covers southwest Merced, retired mailman Ronnie DeAnda remains far ahead of incumbent Fernando Echevarria, with 72.5% of the vote compared to 26.8% respectively.

Three candidates competed for northeast Merced’s District 4 City Council seat. Legal counselor Shane Smith leads the pack with 46.75% of the vote over competitors Casey Steed (31.84%) and Javier Fuentes (20.74%).

For more results visit the Merced County Registrar of Voter’s website.