Guam's Governorship Flips Republican as Final Count Overtakes Early Democratic Lead

Guam's governorship flipped Republican early Wednesday as final unofficial returns gave Vice Speaker Tony Ada and running mate E.J. Calvo a 1,020-vote win over Democrats Therese Terlaje and Sabina Perez — 51.45 percent to 48.15 percent, according to results posted by the Guam Election Commission and reported by the Post Guam newspaper. The Ada-Calvo ticket takes over an open seat: term-limited Democratic Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero was barred from seeking a third term.

The final margin capped an overnight reversal. In the first batch of returns, with just 21 of the territory's 59 precincts processed, Terlaje and Perez were narrowly ahead, 50.22 percent to 49.45 percent — an 80-vote edge. By the time counting wrapped, turnout had grown from roughly 10,600 ballots to a final 31,414, and the later votes broke hard enough toward Ada-Calvo to erase the Democratic lead and turn it into a four-point win.

Guam doesn't vote in federal elections and its roughly 31,000 ballots are a fraction of any mainland battleground — this is a territorial governor's race, not a predictor of House or Senate control. But the shape of the swing is the same one showing up elsewhere tonight: an initial count that looked good for Democrats getting overtaken as more ballots were tallied. It's the same direction as the NYT/Siena poll's finding that late-deciding voters are breaking Republican by nine points in battleground Senate races, and the same direction as Florida's Election Day vote, which Republicans had banked a lead in before a single Election Day ballot was even counted.

Guam's results also showed Republicans competitive down-ballot: Republican Sabrina Salas Matanane ran third in the territory's 15-seat at-large legislature race, and incumbent Attorney General Douglas Moylan trailed challenger Phillip Tydingco in a crowded five-way field. The results remain unofficial pending certification by the Guam Election Commission.