Democrat Katie Porter flips GOP seat in Southern California's 45th Congressional District

Another red seat turned blue in Southern California on Thursday, with Democrat Katie Porter defeating incumbent Republican Rep. Mimi Walters in the 45th Congressional District.

With the latest vote count, Porter, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, has a 6,203-vote lead over Walters. Walters is a Trump supporter, while Porter said she was running "to hold Donald Trump and the powerful special interests in Washington accountable."

Orange County has been a Republican stronghold for decades, and in 2016, while Hillary Clinton carried the district by 5 percentage points, Walters was re-elected by 17 points. If Democrat Gil Cisneros defeats Republican Young Kim in the 39th Congressional District — the county's last undecided race — Orange County won't have any Republican representatives in Congress. Cisneros took the lead for the first time on Thursday, in a bad sign for Kim's chances.

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