Correa takes over lead in Senate race

Democrat Lou Correa passed Republican Lynn Daucher for the first time Thursday in the race for a central Orange County state Senate seat, taking a lead of 282 votes as the tally moved into its second week.

In the count released Thursday evening, Correa had 53,834 votes, or 49.7%, compared with 53,552, or 49.5%, for Daucher. Otto Bade, a GOP candidate who launched a write-in campaign in the final days of the race, appeared to be making the difference, garnering 891 votes. Bade’s campaign was funded mostly by an independent committee affiliated with Democrats.

Correa had trailed Daucher for the District 34 seat since election night, when she led by just 13 votes. In the days afterward, that lead expanded to 833 votes, but Correa’s tally has chipped away at it every day since Friday, as voting officials continued to tally absentee and provisional ballots.

From 2,800 to 4,000 ballots remain to be counted.

Correa said he was “cautiously optimistic.”

“We wait until every vote is counted before we declare victory,” he said. “It is the respectful thing to do, for all the constituents whom I asked to vote for me.”

Daucher was on vacation and not available for comment.

Her campaign manager, Bryan Lanza, called it “just another day of counting.”

Asked about Bade’s campaign, he said: “It would be a much different race if he weren’t in it.”

Poll watchers said the numbers appeared to favor Correa.

“I do think this is a trend that can’t be reversed with the number of ballots remaining,” said Paul Mitchell, political director of EdVoice, an education policy advocacy group that spent $70,000 on an independent expenditure campaign for Daucher.

Lanza said he was told by Registrar Neal Kelley that counting might be concluded Monday.

christian.berthelsen

@latimes.com