Free Republic

"..For Tacherra to have a chance of winning, the rural Fresno County dairyman needed an overwhelming victory margin in the remaining votes from Merced and Madera counties—which to date had been his strongest parts of the district. Both counties finished their vote counts, and Tacherra, 39, actually lost ground to Costa, 62. To have even had a chance of catching Costa, Tacherra would have had to win more than 80% of those votes........When Fresno County’s count came out, Costa won 1,056 votes to Tacherra’s 447.Costa ended up winning 63.9% of the Fresno County votes to Tacherra’s 36.1%. In Madera, Tacherra...

Without fanfare, Merced County added 143 ballots to its vote count on Thursday, and incumbent Fresno Democrat Jim Costa’s lead in the 16th Congressional District shrunk by 11 votes. Costa’s lead is now a mere 75 votes over unheralded Republican challenger Johnny Tacherra. In raw numbers, it is 43,232 to 43,157........................

Republican Johnny Tacherra is in Washington, D.C. at the orientation for new members of Congress, but he’s no longer in the lead for the 16th Congressional District seat. Fresno County updated its vote count Wednesday afternoon, and incumbent Fresno Democrat Jim Costa — behind in his reelection bid since election night more than a week ago — took a slim, 86-vote lead over Tacherra.

He received no national-party funding, ran what he calls an “old-school” campaign without data-driven analytics, and had only one paid staffer, at $500 per month, but this third-generation dairy farmer from California may just pull out the biggest upset of the 2014 cycle. As of publication time, Republican Johnny Tacherra is leading longtime Democratic lawmaker Jim Costa in the yet-to-be-decided race for the Golden State’s 16th congressional district. With provisional ballots still to be counted, and with a 700-plus-vote cushion, Tacherra is confident that he will survive. He and his wife are heading to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to take...

".....As of publication time, Republican Johnny Tacherra is leading longtime Democratic lawmaker Jim Costa in the yet-to-be-decided race for the Golden State’s 16th congressional district. With provisional ballots still to be counted, and with a 700-plus-vote cushion, Tacherra is confident that he will survive. He and his wife are heading to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to take part in freshmen-member orientation on Capitol Hill....... ....The New York Times put the race on its “Democrats Are Expected to Win Easily” list, and the Cook Political Report labeled the seat as “Solid Democrat,” or uncompetitive. Republican national committees and organizations stayed out...