The Associated Press called the Central Valley race for the Merced Democrat on Nov. 4 and Kevin Lincoln conceded; with results unofficial until certified, Mr. Gray returns in January to a House that Democrats will control.
In 2024, Rep. Adam Gray’s race was the last House contest in the country to be decided, and he won it by 187 votes. This year his re-election was called the morning after Election Day.
In the most recent update from the California Secretary of State, posted at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, Mr. Gray, a Democrat from Merced, had 95,939 votes, or 62 percent, to 58,823 votes, or 38 percent, for Kevin Lincoln, the Republican former mayor of Stockton. That is a margin of 37,116 votes in the 13th Congressional District. Ballots are still being processed, and the result is unofficial until the count is certified.
The Associated Press called the race early on Nov. 4, when about 57 percent of the vote had been counted, Stocktonia reported. Mr. Lincoln conceded the same day, congratulating Mr. Gray and wishing him well. “To everyone who volunteered, supported and poured their heart and soul into our campaign, thank you,” Mr. Lincoln said.
“Valley voters have once again placed their trust in me, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly,” Mr. Gray said. “Now it’s time to get back to work.”
A new map, and an old rivalry
The district Mr. Gray won this year is not the one he flipped in 2024. Under Proposition 50, the redistricting plan California voters approved last year, the seat gained the city of Stockton, which Inside Elections said moved it from an evenly divided baseline to D+6, according to Ballotpedia. The same analysis cautioned that Latino voters’ shift to the right in recent cycles had made the area better for Republicans than the number alone suggests. The district now runs down Highway 99 from parts of Stockton through Modesto, Turlock and Patterson to Atwater, Merced and Madera.
The contest closed a long run of close races in the northern San Joaquin Valley. Mr. Gray, a former state assemblyman, lost to Republican John Duarte by 564 votes in 2022, then beat him by 187 in 2024 after a count that took more than a month, CalMatters noted.
How Republicans contested it
Republicans treated the seat as one of their few realistic targets in California after redistricting. President Trump endorsed Mr. Lincoln, and Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned for him, in Chowchilla and at a late-October rally at the Port of Stockton, where he called the race a top contest in the party’s effort to keep the House.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with House Republican leaders, had spent more than $4.34 million on the race as of Oct. 11, according to CalMatters, while the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC had spent less than $400,000.
Mr. Lincoln, a Marine Corps veteran who once served on the presidential helicopter squadron, ran on cutting taxes and government spending, public safety and immigration enforcement. “My message resonates with the voters regardless of a party,” he told CalMatters, describing affordability and water as issues that are “not red or blue — they’re red, white and blue.” He argued that his 2020 defeat of Mayor Michael Tubbs, a progressive Democrat, showed cross-party appeal, and pointed to Stockton’s violent crime rate reaching a 15-year low by the time he left office.
The Republican super PAC’s ads focused on Mr. Gray’s decade in Sacramento, especially his 2017 vote for a transportation package that raised the state gas tax by 12 cents a gallon. The ads also accused him of profiting from a Merced County road project funded in that deal, after a construction company owned by his cousin, in which he holds a minority stake, built a hotel near the new road. Mr. Gray disclosed receiving more than $366,000 from the company in 2023 and 2024 on House financial reports, CalMatters reported.
Mr. Gray had the financial edge in his own account: $5.24 million raised to Mr. Lincoln’s $2.97 million as of Nov. 2, according to Ballotpedia.
The centrist’s pitch
Mr. Gray ran as he has governed, as a self-described moderate who emphasizes affordability, water supply and work with Republicans. The House passed a telehealth bill he wrote with Rep. David Valadao, Republican of Hanford, and a geothermal permitting measure he wrote with Rep. Young Kim, Republican of Orange County, CalMatters reported. The California Farm Bureau, which rarely backs Democrats, endorsed him in April; its president, Shannon Douglass, said he “puts politics aside and makes sure that farmers and ranchers benefit.”
“The Valley doesn’t need more politicians trying to score partisan points in Washington,” Mr. Gray said in a statement quoted by Ballotpedia. “I’ve proven I’ll work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, if it means lowering costs, strengthening our farms and small businesses, and making life better for Valley families.”
Paul Mitchell, the Democratic data consultant who drew the Proposition 50 maps, told CalMatters that Mr. Gray had “taken some votes where he’s kind of, like, split from Democrats.” His opponents saw it differently; Mr. Lincoln said Mr. Gray had been “complicit in the cost of living crisis.”
What changes in January
The bigger shift for Mr. Gray is the House itself. The Associated Press called the chamber for Democrats on election night. A centrist who spent his first term in the minority will now be a member of the majority, with the leverage and the pressure that brings: party leaders will need moderate votes, and Valley voters who backed him across party lines will be watching which way he casts them.
Mr. Gray sits on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committees, including the Natural Resources subcommittee on water, wildlife and fisheries, assignments that touch the Valley’s water deliveries and farm economy. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, is in line to chair Natural Resources next year.
Mr. Gray’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment sent Tuesday.
Beatrix Halloran covers the campaigns, money, ambitions and personalities of Northern California’s congressional delegation, for The Delegation. More from Beatrix Halloran
