Democrat Ami Bera has won an eighth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating Republican Robb Tucker in California's newly redrawn 3rd Congressional District, according to an Associated Press race call. The AP's results page marks Bera as the called winner, and Decision Desk HQ's count put him at 95,372 votes, or 57.1 percent, against 71,774 votes, or 42.9 percent, for Tucker in the count reported on Wednesday, November 4.
Source: Associated Press election results, CA-03, Nov. 4, 2026
At 61, Bera extends his record as the longest-serving Indian American in Congress. He did it from a new seat: Bera currently represents California's 6th District, but he contested the redrawn 3rd District after California voters approved Proposition 50 last year, the mid-decade redistricting measure Democrats pushed through in response to Republican-led redistricting in other states. Local station FOX40 described the seat as switching from red to blue under the new lines.
Source: American Bazaar Online, Nov. 4, 2026
A district drawn across four counties
The new 3rd District covers El Dorado and Nevada counties and portions of Placer and Sacramento counties, reaching from the Sierra Nevada foothills into the city of Sacramento itself. Tucker, Bera's opponent, sits on the Nevada County Board of Supervisors. The county pattern showed why the redraw mattered: Bera led in Nevada County with about 59 percent, in El Dorado County with about 58 percent and in Sacramento County with about 62 percent, while Tucker led in Placer County with about 56 percent, according to New York Times results reported by American Bazaar Online.
Source: FOX40 via Fior Reports, Nov. 4, 2026
The seat's previous lines had been held by Republican Kevin Kiley. Under Proposition 50, the district's registration makeup shifted to roughly 38 percent Democratic and 31 percent Republican, compared with 33 percent Democratic and 38 percent Republican in 2022, according to a Greenberg Traurig analysis of the primary. In the June top-two primary, Bera received about 34 percent of the vote and Tucker about 30 percent, and both advanced to the November ballot.
A good night for Indian American Democrats
Bera's win was part of a wider pattern in the 2026 midterms. Indian American Democratic lawmakers Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal and Suhas Subramanyam were also re-elected to the House, and Pia Dandiya won Florida's 22nd District to make her debut in Congress, according to reporting by India Weekly and the Press Trust of India. The same night went the other way for the most prominent Indian American Republican on the ballot: Vivek Ramaswamy lost the Ohio governor's race to Democrat Amy Acton, in a result the AP also projected.
The 3rd District's Sacramento and Placer County suburbs are home to a fast-growing Punjabi and South Asian community, and its foothill towns sit along the Interstate 80 and Highway 50 corridors that Punjabi truckers drive daily. Their member of Congress is now the most senior Indian American in the House — a voice on the committees and caucuses where immigration, small-business and transport questions are argued first.
What the result does — and does not — settle
An AP race call is a news organisation's determination that the trailing candidate has no realistic path to overtake the leader; it is not a certification. California's count continues after election night because mail ballots postmarked by Election Day keep arriving, and the Secretary of State's semi-official results are not certified until December 11. Bera's margin — more than 23,000 votes in the reported count — is why the call came while fewer than half of the district's precincts had fully reported.
What happens next
Counties keep updating their totals until the statewide certification on December 11. The Congress elected on November 3 is sworn in on January 3, 2027, when Bera begins his eighth term — this time for the 3rd District — in a House that Democrats have won back, with Hakeem Jeffries in line to become Speaker. For Tucker, who remains a Nevada County supervisor, there was no reported concession statement in the sources reviewed for this report.