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Rakhi Israni holds out hope as ballot processing continues
Democrat Aisha Wahab has already secured the top spot; however, the race for the second spot continues.
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Jeffin T. Kaleekal - Thu, 04, Jun 2026
- 03:02 EDT
- 21
Rakhi Israni / Handout
Congressional hopeful Democrat Rakhi Israni claims that her candidacy hopes are still alive, hours after primary results showed her trailing.
California State Sen. Aisha Wahab has already secured her place in the November general election for the open CA-14 congressional seat, leading the primary with 34.3 percent of the vote after former Rep. Eric Swalwell resigned.
Israni is currently in fifth place, with 11.5 percent of the vote, trailing Democrat Melissa Hernandez with 16.1 percent and Republicans Wendy Huang with 16 percent and Dena Maldonado with 14.8 percent.
While catching up to Wahab is unlikely for any of the other candidates, the second spot is still up for grabs.
Israni offered calculations to substantiate her hope and noted that 54 percent of ballots in CA-14, the congressional district she is contesting, remain uncounted.
She continued, "In-person voting: 100% counted — but only ~15% of expected total."
ALSO READ: Ro Khanna secures landslide victory in California primary
Israni also noted that only 46 percent of the expected mail-in ballots have been counted, noting, "Ballots cast Friday or later are almost certainly NOT in tonight's totals."
She argues that this means 55 percent of the mail ballots were cast in the final five days and are therefore sitting at the Alameda County Registrar, waiting to be processed.
Israni noted that the mail-in ballots awaiting counting have the potential to change her campaign fortunes.
She claimed, "Our biggest mobilization push was concentrated in those final 5 days. We knocked doors. We texted nearly 250,000 voters. We dialed tens of thousands more. We drove neighbors to Vote Centers. We pushed our community — historically the lowest-turnout demographic in CA-14 — to show up at the end."
Israni is optimistic that this last-minute push was enough to overcome the roughly 4 percentage-point margin that separates her from the current second-place holder, Melissa Hernandez.
Israni claimed, "This race isn't over. Not because I'm being naively optimistic — because the math literally hasn't been finished. Alameda County will be processing ballots throughout the week."
She ended her X post with a message of hope and gratitude. She said, "Whatever the final count shows, here's what I know: We built a coalition that didn't exist before this campaign. Diverse communities, leaders, educators, business owners — people who'd never been brought together for a single candidate stood up for us."
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