Mike Garcia moved out to a widening lead over Christy Smith in the dramatic, pandemic-framed Los Angeles County race for a key seat in Congress.

Preliminary results from the Secretary of State’s office showed Garcia, a Republican, with a 56% to 44% lead over Smith, the Democratic assemblywoman, for the Congressional District 25 seat. The post represents an area from the northern San Fernando Valley to the Simi Valley to the Antelope Valley to a sliver of Ventura County. The results so far represent mostly mail-in ballots returned before Tuesday, and 4,199 in-person ballots cast during an early voting period at L.A. County’s vote centers.

Garcia recorded 80,337 votes to 62,998 for Smith, according to semi-official results, early Wednesday, May 13. It’s unclear how many votes remain to be counted.

If the numbers hold up, Garcia, 44, would become the first Republican to flip the seat from blue to red in nearly 30 years (before district lines were redrawn). You’d have to go back to 1998 for the last time a Republican flipped a seat blue in heavily Democratic California.