Duncan Hunter's lead has slipped to just 4.6% -- 11,141 votes!

[Liberty Belle]

On election night he was up over 8%, but as of tonight he's lost almost half of that lead:
https://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-rep/district/50

There are still over 250,000 votes to count in San Diego County countywide; unclear how many are in this district. There are also some to count in Riverside County.

Equally interesting, conservative Riverside had given him a much bigger lead on election night but it's now between 4.5 and 4.6% in each of those counties. There are likely a LOT more votes left to county in San Diego, since only a tiny fraction of the district is in Riverside.

I think Ammar Campa Najjar may still have a shot at knocking out our indicted Congressman!

Of course if Hunter wins it won't be for long; assuming he's convicted after his trial starts in December the Dems will kick him out of the house and there will be a special election. But it would be harder for Ammar or anyone else Dem to win this conservative district against a "clean" Republican without the stain of indictment, not to mention Hunter's racist comments and other idiocies.

Keeping fingers crosssed we just may see the surprise flip of the century here in the 50th Congressional District.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Thanks for reminding us of his upcoming trial, Liberty Belle.

What IS it with certain parts of california, and their dependency upon dirty idiots like Hunter, Nunez, Darrel Issa, etc.?

The thought that even if Hunter wins he still has to go to trial is a real picker-upper. He is a hideous, horrible guy, just like his crappy father.

[Liberty Belle]

2. With Dems winning the House, he lost his biggest bargaining chip.

If Reps had won, they actually would have had the power to let him hold onto his seat even if convicted though that would be unprecedented. But he'd have been in a stronger position to take a plea bargain, agreeing to step down in exchange for leniency or dropping the most serious charges.

Now with Dems at the helm, of course they will throw him out of Congress the second he gets convicted.

Sure hope he enjoys that new orange jumpsuit he'll probably soon be wearing, and likely a longer term than if he'd copped a plea earlier.

Dems could also reopen the ethics committee investigation into Hunter and really make his life miserable.

With his early support of Trump, I've also wondered where he's done anything Mr. Mueller might be looking into....one can hope!

[joshcryer]

3. "that new orange jumpsuit he'll probably soon be wearing"

YES. He's done. The case is open and shut. Even if he gets elected (likely) the dude is going to jail, as is his wife.

[grantcart]

4. I would be surprised if there were more than 50K votes in this district

There are about 200,000 votes cast in this election and in the last midterm there were only 157K.

In 2016 there were 283K and you would expect this midterm to come under that.

I didn't realize who the predecessors in this district were because it moved so much when they added seats.

All of the Representatives that came from CA 50 left in disgrace (although they were different parts of San Diego and his father wasn't one of them

They were:

The 4 people who held this district were;

1) Bob Filner, a Democratic POS who eventually ran for Mayor and had to resign because of numerous sexual harassment charges. He resigned and was convicted of assaulting 3 different Jane Does

2) Duke Cunningham who spent 7 years in prison and had most of his pensions stripped from him and lives on $ 1700 a month in Arkansas (quite a drop off for the guy who "Top Gun" was based on)

3) Brian Bilbray. Bilbray disgraced himself when in his final Congressional campaign he ran commercials of his daughter who had tragically come down with terminal cancer in her twenties and wanted everyone in the district to know that while he had a reputation for being a hard ass and not caring for the poor that since she got cancer he had been able to get tens of millions added to legislation that would help fight Cancer.

When it turned out that those additions were part of the ACA and that Bilbray voted against it when it came to the floor event he Republicans voted his ass out of office.

4) Brian Hunter.

75% of the people that have represented this district have gotten criminal convictions. The other 25% are non convicted sacks of shit.

What a record. All 4 represented completely different parts of San Diego and Imperial County

[dsc]

5. If the 50k is right then the split would have to be

30571 to 19429 or 61.4 to 38.6. Sadly I think the fat lady is singing here.