photo credit: Sonoma County Registrar of Voters

Votes are still being counted in races across California, but some of the closely watched primary contests for Congress have been called, at least in part.

Sonoma County will be split between three Congressional districts next year.

State Senator Mike McGuire and now Congressman-elect James Gallagher will square off for the District 1 seat, which covers Santa Rosa north along the Highway 101 corridor into Mendocino and Lake counties.

Incumbent Jared Huffman will be going for re-election in November to represent Congressional District 2, covering Marin and West Sonoma County up to the Oregon border.

"I think this is going to come down to trust, and what I would love to do is kind of take the politics out of it," Huffman said Wednesday. "I think I've got an excellent chance of prevailing here and being the next representative for this area, and I just want to try to deliver some solutions for the people and the communities."

Like many California congressional districts, the 2nd was reshaped by 2025's Proposition 50. The district still stretches north up the coast from the Golden Gate Bridge to Del Norte County, and now moves east, covering Shasta, Siskiyou, and Modoc counties as well.

Huffman said while he knows it'll be an uphill task to win over voters in conservative rural communities that have gone heavily for Republicans in recent elections, he's ready to reach out heading into November.

"At this point, I'm less concerned about trying to get them to vote for me than I am about trying to just build a functional relationship where I can hear them out and they can help educate me about their concerns and we can explore some things together and hopefully get a few things done," Huffman said. "That's that's really my aspiration here."

The other congressman for Sonoma County is 4th District Representative Mike Thompson. The 14 term incumbent advanced to the November general election with a strong early vote return in Tuesday's primary,

In a statement, he thanked the over 240 local elected officials and community leaders who've backed his re-election campaign.

Republican Ray Riehle currently sits in second place in the race to secure a top two spot and advance to November, but hot on his heals is progressive Democratic challenger Eric Jones, who's been seen as Thompson's biggest rival in the race.

"We're feeling really good," Jones said in call after election day. "It's funny...we emailed a bunch of press early on to say, 'hey, the first ballot drop is not going to be the best indication of where things sit.'"

Jones said he and his campaign team expect see many more votes break in their favor as more young voter and democratic ballots filed on election day get counted; and regardless of the results, Jones, a political newcomer, said he learned a valuable lesson about politics.

"That is people want change and the simplest message [is] our politics is not working today, our government is not working for the average American family and we need something different," Jones said.

All primary election results in California will be certified by July 10th.