The Orange County Vote : A Tight Race to See Who Will Challenge Dornan : 46th District: Farber leads Banuelos by 142 votes, with about 2,000 absentee ballots to be counted.

Two Democratic congressional candidates, a scant 142 votes apart, remained hopeful of victory Wednesday as the registrar of voters conducted a ballot-by-ballot count of absentee votes to decide who will challenge incumbent Rep. Robert K. Dornan.

Mike Farber, a heavily endorsed Santa Ana businessman, is narrowly ahead of Robert John Banuelos, with 4,625 votes or about 29% of the vote. Banuelos, a Santa Ana senior citizens counselor, received 4,483 for 28.1% of the 46th Congressional District’s Democratic primary.

An estimated 2,000 absentee votes remain to be counted--all that arrived at the county registrar’s after June 4, a registrar spokeswoman said.

“Well we haven’t won yet,” Farber said guardedly. “When the absentees are counted we will celebrate, but only after making sure.”

In early returns on Tuesday evening, Banuelos took a substantial lead, but as the evening and the ballot counting progressed, that gap closed.

“It could go either way,” Banuelos said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “So everyone is optimistic until it’s all counted.”

Nine-term incumbent Dornan had no Republican challengers this year and, according to the most recent campaign finance statements, has raised nearly $473,000 since Jan. 1, more than seven times the amount raised by Farber, the best-financed Democrat in the race.

Libertarian candidate Richard G. Newhouse will also face Dornan in November.

Farber and Banuelos, who lead a field of six Democrats, both said they pushed hard at the end of the campaign to remain in contention. Farber pointed to an aggressive, last-minute four-piece mail campaign and having his name on four separate slate mailers. Banuelos said he targeted absentee voters.

“Not only did we push absentee ballots ourselves,” Banuelos said, “but various community centers in the district also stressed a vote-at-home program and it was one of the tools we used.”

Beverly Warner, Orange County registrar elections supervisor, said that signatures on the county’s estimated 25,000 absentee ballots sent in on Tuesday’s election are being confirmed and the slow process of counting has begun, though final results are not expected until late Friday at the earliest, she said.

There are no runoffs in these partisan primaries, Warner said, so the “person who gets the most votes wins.”

“As of right now, we’re trying to get the signatures that are on the absentee ballots verified,” Warner said. “Nothing will be done in the way of putting out any information until Monday or at the earliest, late Friday.”

In the 41st Congressional District, which takes in part of northern Orange County and sections of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar) successfully beat back a challenge from Todd R. Thakar, an attorney from Orange, who had 23% of the vote to Kim’s 33.2%.

On the Democratic side, urban redeveloper Ed Tessier beat Richard Waldron.

The four other Republican incumbents in Orange County, Reps. Christopher Cox of Newport Beach, Ron Packard of Carlsbad, Edward R. Royce of Fullerton, and Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach, easily won.

In November, Cox will face Democrat Gary Kingsbury of Irvine, and Libertarian Victor A. Wagner Jr. of Mission Viejo. Packard will be challenged by Democrat Andrei Leschick of Valley Center and Peace and Freedom candidate Donna White of San Diego. Royce faces Libertarian Jack Harris Dean of Fullerton and Democrat R.O. (Bob) Davis of Buena Park. Rohrabacher faces Democrat Brett Williamson of Costa Mesa.