Incumbent Lisa Calderon took an early lead Tuesday against challenger Jessica Martinez for a seat representing the 56th State Assembly District, and had not relinquished that lead by Thursday, according the latest update from the Los Angeles County Registrar.
Calderon, who was first elected in 2020, had more than half of the vote by Thursday, with the latest tallies giving her 54.73% compared to Martinez with 45.27%, according to the L.A. County Registrar’s office, which will give its last update on results on Nov. 26. California election results are scheduled to be certified on Dec. 3.
LIVE ELECTION RESULTS: See a chart of the latest vote counts
Calderon campaigned on issues she and Martinez agreed are the district’s most pressing concerns: public safety, affordable housing, and homelessness. Calderon said the results of the national elections, from the vote for president on down, can be distilled to one concern: the economy.
“The message from voters is clear: Keep working on how much things cost. Housing, Insurance, gas, utilities, groceries—everything,” Calderon said. “The economy may look healthy, but people feel squeezed. That’s my focus and it’s what people expect from us as elected leaders.”
Martinez did not respond to several requests for comments.
The race between Calderon, a Democrat, and Martinez, a Republican member of the Whittier City Council, resulted from a runoff at the March primary elections. Their first matchup was in 2022, when Calderon defeated Martinez in the general election by 17%.
Early in her career, Calderon was a legislative aide to then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, while Martinez service on the Whittier City Council included a stint as mayor pro tem.
California’s 56th Assembly District includes several cities and communities in the southeast portions of the San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles County, such as Avocado Heights, Diamond Bar, El Monte, Hacienda Heights, Industry, La Habra Heights, La Puente, Pico Rivera, Rose Hills, Rowland Heights, South El Monte, Walnut, West Whittier-Los Nietos, and Whittier.
The district has about 493,173 residents, per the 2020 Census. The majority of the district is Hispanic (59.57%) with other demographics including Asians at 26.94% and White (10.09%).
After posting updates on Wednesday, the L.A. County Registrar’s Office said it estimated that the number of outstanding ballots needed to be processed was about 1.1 million. The total included about one million vote-by-mail ballots, 104,000 conditional voter registration ballots and 12,100 provisional ballots.
The county said the number of outstanding vote-by-mail ballots would increase as it continues to accept ballots postmarked by Election Day and received through Tuesday, Nov. 12.