Democrat Marni von Wilpert has flipped California's 48th Congressional District for her party, defeating Republican Jim Desmond in the open seat left by retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, according to an Associated Press race call. The AP's district results page marks von Wilpert as the called winner with 95,547 votes against 65,023 for Desmond, with about 54 percent of the estimated vote counted. Decision Desk HQ had called the race for her late on election night, at 11:14 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday.
Source: Associated Press election results, CA-48, Nov. 4, 2026
Von Wilpert, a member of the San Diego City Council, declared victory on Wednesday morning. City News Service reported that as of 9 a.m. Wednesday she held 92,924 votes, or 59.6 percent, to Desmond's 63,015 votes, or 40.4 percent, in the count at that hour, with tens of thousands of ballots still left to be counted across the district. The Center Square's statewide report the same day also recorded her as the winner in District 48, by the same 59.6-to-40.4 margin in its Wednesday morning snapshot.
Source: City News Service via North County Chronicle, Nov. 4, 2026
An open seat Issa chose to leave
The 48th was an open seat because Issa, the Vista Republican who had represented the area for decades, chose not to seek re-election after Proposition 50 redrew the district. The new 48th spans portions of San Diego and Riverside counties: San Marcos and Vista and parts of Escondido and Oceanside in San Diego County, and Hemet, Indian Wells, Palm Springs and Temecula in Riverside County, according to the North County Chronicle's district guide. That Prop 50 geography — coastal North County tied to inland desert and wine-country communities — made the seat substantially more favourable to Democrats than the one Issa had held.
A prosecutor and council member against a supervisor and pilot
Von Wilpert is a former civil prosecutor with the San Diego City Attorney's Office who was first elected to the San Diego City Council in 2020, representing its 5th District; her campaign noted she had turned the city's most conservative council district blue, and City News Service reported the same description of her record. Desmond is a San Diego County supervisor, a U.S. Navy veteran, a former Delta Air Lines pilot and a former mayor of San Marcos who campaigned on border security and addressing affordability, according to his campaign website as reported by CNS.
Source: City News Service via North County Chronicle, Nov. 4, 2026
Health care ran through her campaign in a personal way: The Advocate reported that von Wilpert's own breast cancer diagnosis turned the debate over health coverage into a question about her own survival, a theme she carried into a district where hospital access — from North County San Diego to the Coachella Valley edge at Palm Springs — is a live local issue.
Desmond had not conceded as of the Wednesday reports, and tens of thousands of ballots remained to be counted. A race call is not a certification: California's semi-official results are certified on December 11, and the remaining mail and provisional ballots will move the final margin, though not, on the AP's judgement, the winner.
Why it matters beyond San Diego
Every flipped seat built the Democratic House majority the AP called in the early hours of Wednesday, and the 48th was one of several California seats — alongside the 1st, 3rd, 22nd and 41st districts — that Democrats converted under the Proposition 50 map their party drew to answer Republican redistricting in other states. For the Punjabi and South Asian families spread across Temecula, Riverside County and North County San Diego, and for truckers running the Interstate 15 corridor through the district, the change means a new, first-term representative in Washington whose office will handle their immigration casework, small-business concerns and highway issues from January.
What happens next
San Diego and Riverside counties continue counting until the statewide certification on December 11. Von Wilpert is due to be sworn in with the new Congress on January 3, 2027, succeeding Issa, while she still holds her City Council seat until she leaves for Washington. Desmond remains a San Diego County supervisor. The final certified margin will show whether the late-counted ballots narrowed a race that, on every snapshot from election night onward, von Wilpert led by roughly three votes to two.