By Louis Chan, AsAmNews National Correspondent
Six congressional races with Asian American candidates remain undecided more than 36 hours after the election, including four in California.
If all six are ultimately successful, there will be 22 Asian American and Pacific American elected to Congress. That number includes three from the Pacific Island territories who are elected, but don’t have a vote in Congress.
For the second election in a row, Filipino and Chinese American TJ Cox (D-Fresno, CA) is in a neck and neck race with David Valadao. Valadao is a three term Representative who Cox unseated in 2018. Election officials didn’t declare the winner of that race until more than a month after the polls closed.
Analysts don’t expect a winner to be declared anytime soon in 2020 either. Right now, Cox is down by 3300 votes, 56,269 to 53,236.
“We’re going to wait until every vote is counted, every voice is heard and then we’ll be satisfied with the result,” Cox said to ABC30.
In Los Angeles County, Challenger David Kim is fighting to unseat fellow Democrat and incumbent Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). Right now Kim is behind 52.7 to 47.3%.
Nearby, Republican Young Kim is holding onto a narrow lead over Democratic incumbent Gil Cisneros 50.3% to 49.7%. The district includes parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino Counties.
Kim is a former state Assembly member and a staff member of Rep. Ed Royce. She outraised Cisneros $5.4 million to $3.9 million.
Also in Southern California, another Republican, Michelle Eunjoo Park Steel, holds a narrow lead over incumbent Democrat Harley Rouda 50.4% to 49.6%. She is currently a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
“We feel good about where things stand but will continue monitoring as more results come in,” said Lance Trover, Steel’s campaign spokesman.
In Arizona, Democratic challenger Hiral Tipirneni is hoping to narrow a 2 percent gap with incumbent David Schweikert. Tipirneni says win or lose, she’s sending a message.
“It highlights the important of keeping elected officials accountable, holding them accountable and making them work for re-election, work for that powerful gift we give, a vote. They should be working for it. No one should be sliding into a re-election with any sense of entitlement,” she said to ABC15.
In Guam, Michael San Nicolas failed to get 50 percent of the vote and will be in a runoff with Robert Underwood on November 17. San Nicolas beat Underwood in the general election 46 to 34 percent.
(Editor Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified the ethnicity of TJ Cox. We apologize for the error.)
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