Republican Natasha Johnson is leading by a narrow margin of 271 votes in early results of the June 24 special election to fill the District 63 state Assembly seat, which covers parts of Riverside and Orange counties.

Johnson’s lead amounts to less than 1 percent of votes counted over Democrat Chris Shoults as of the latest data reported at 11:26 p.m. on June 24.

Official results aren’t expected for eight days, according to the California secretary of state.

Currently, Johnson has 20,431 of the votes counted (44.8 percent) over Shoults’s 20,160 (44.2 percent), but because none of the candidates running have reached the 50-percent threshold, the election could be headed to a runoff.

Republican Vincent Romo garnered 9.6 percent of the vote, while Libertarian Zachary Gonsalvo has 1.4 percent.

In the Nov. 5 election, Shoults lost to incumbent Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli, who left office in April to accept a Trump administration appointment as U.S. attorney for the Central District of California.

The Central District is the largest of any federal judicial district in the nation with a population of nearly 20 million and takes in seven counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.

Essayli served as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and Riverside offices from October 2014 to February 2018 where he prosecuted criminals charged with violent and organized crime, bank fraud, securities fraud, and other white-collar crimes.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who is running for governor in 2026, and Essayli have both backed Johnson.