A close election on the edge of the San Fernando Valley is threatening Republican Assemblyman Dante Acosta’s hold on one of his party’s few state legislative seats in Los Angeles County.

Acosta and Democratic challenger Christy Smith anxiously await the next scheduled ballot-count update on Tuesday after the incumbent’s lead shrank Friday to 213 votes out of more than 136,000 tallied since the Nov. 6 election.

Acosta led by 1,222 the morning after the election in California’s 38th Assembly District, which ranges from Porter Ranch and Simi Valley up through Santa Clarita to Castaic and Agua Dulce.

Thousands of ballots, including provisional ballots and many that arrived by mail on election day, remain to be counted by Los Angeles and Ventura county officials, though they wouldn’t say exactly how many.

“We’re waiting with bated breath tomorrow,” Acosta, R-Santa Clarita, said Monday by phone from a dentist’s chair. “It was a tough campaign, and there was a lot of misinformation out there. But we’re hoping voters saw through that and I can return to Sacramento and continue to do good work.”

Said Smith: “Any office worth running for for two years is worth waiting a couple of weeks to hear the results.”

Counties have until Dec. 7 to report final results to the California Secretary of State, whose office has until Dec. 14 to certify election results.

Smith noted that Democrats usually gain ground as vote counts go on, as has been the case in several key congressional races in Southern California this year.

“But I wouldn’t take that for granted,” she said.

Of the two dozen state legislators whose districts are entirely or partly in L.A. County, only three Assembly districts and four Senate districts are represented by Republicans.

GOP candidates lead handily in the other three state legislative races up for election in 2018.

If Smith flips Acosta’s seat and other candidates’ current leads hold, Democrats will expand their two-thirds supermajority in the Assembly. Democrats also appear on their way to regaining their supermajority in the state Senate. A supermajority allows a party to pass tax legislation and some other important bills without the rival party’s cooperation.

Acosta was elected to the Assembly in 2016, when the former Santa Clarita City Council member defeated Smith, a Newhall school board member, by 11,000 votes (5.8 percentage points).

But the Acosta-Smith rematch has been shaped by some of the same political changes that affected the same area’s race for the U.S. House of Representatives, in which Rep. Steve Knight, R-Palmdale, was unseated by Democrat Katie Hill on Nov. 6. The latest voter registration data in the 38th Assembly District showed Democrats leading Republicans by 0.36 percentage points. Before the 2016 election, Republicans led by 1.69 percentage points.

This year’s race was one of nine labeled “close contests” Monday by the state’s election results website.