Election Day has delivered its first gubernatorial flip—and the winning Republican ticket pulled it off after erasing an early Democratic lead.
The first pickup came from Guam, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Tony Ada and his running mate, E.J. Calvo, finished 1,020 votes ahead of Democrats Therese Terlaje and Sabina Perez in the completed unofficial count.
With Guam’s precinct tally complete, Ada-Calvo received 15,945 votes, or 51.45%. Terlaje-Perez received 14,925 votes, or 48.15%.
Another 124 ballots went to write-in candidates.
The numbers immediately put Guam on the national Election Day scoreboard:
That result flips the governor’s office after eight years of Democratic control under term-limited Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero. It also makes Ada and Calvo’s late surge more consequential than a routine open-seat win.
The race did not look settled at midnight.
Public Radio Guam tracked the changing count from Guam Election Commission releases as ballot boxes arrived at the University of Guam Calvo Field House. With 21 of 59 precincts reporting, Terlaje-Perez held an 80-vote edge, 5,243 to 5,163.
That narrow Democratic lead did not last. As additional precincts came in, Ada-Calvo moved ahead by nearly 500 votes with 38 precincts reporting, then widened the advantage to 1,020 votes in the completed unofficial tally.
The local outlet also reported that Alicia Limtiaco remained ahead in the delegate race while Phillip Tydingco led the attorney general contest. Those parallel results showed that the gubernatorial reversal was not part of a one-party sweep across Guam’s ballot.
Terlaje told supporters that she had called Ada to concede on behalf of the Democratic ticket. At Republican headquarters, the mood shifted from a tense overnight watch to celebration as the final precincts erased any realistic path back for the Democrats.
Veteran congressional reporter John Bresnahan captured the political shorthand that inevitably follows an early Guam result:
There is an old Election Day fascination with Guam because the U.S. territory votes far ahead of the mainland. Its results can provide the first real returns of the day, but they should not be treated as a scientific forecast for the rest of the country.
What happened on the island is still politically significant on its own: Republicans captured the executive branch while the broader ballot showed plenty of split-ticket voting.
Pacific Daily News reported that Republicans also occupied eight of the top 15 positions in Guam’s legislative count after Democrats had held the early advantage. Republican Sabrina Salas Matanane ranked third in the legislative tally, followed by fellow Republicans Jesse Lujan and Chris Duenas.
Additional GOP candidates appeared throughout the top 15, giving Republicans a narrow edge in the provisional lineup. That was another overnight reversal, because Democrats had occupied eight of the leading legislative positions in the earlier count.
But the GOP did not sweep every major contest. Democrat Alicia Limtiaco led Republican incumbent James Moylan in the race for Guam’s non-voting delegate to the U.S. House, 15,645 to 14,983, while Tydingco remained ahead of incumbent Douglas Moylan for attorney general.
Taken together, the completed precinct numbers show voters choosing a Republican change in the governor’s office while dividing their support farther down the ballot. The governorship is the biggest partisan prize, but it was not a straight-ticket night.
VoteHub posted the all-precinct delegate figures:
Guam Non-Voting Delegate to the U.S. House
All precincts reported:
Alicia Anne Garrido Limtiaco – 15,645 (51.0%)
James Craig Moylan – 14,983 (48.8%)
Write-in – 49 (0.2%)
— VoteHub (@VoteHub) November 3, 2026
That split result is an important piece of context. Guam voters backed a Republican change at the governor’s office while giving the Democratic congressional challenger an edge.
The governor’s tally is still unofficial. The Guam Election Commission is the authority that publishes and certifies the territory’s results, and its election calendar keeps the process open beyond the first completed precinct report.
Provisional voters have a window to cure eligible ballot issues, and absentee ballots arriving by the commission’s deadline must still be handled. The commission is scheduled to reconvene before certification, so the result should not be described as legally final yet.
None of that changes the present political reality. The completed precinct count gives Ada-Calvo a 1,020-vote lead, Terlaje has conceded, and the outstanding certification steps would have to produce an extraordinary reversal to alter the apparent winner.
The commission’s final certification will close the legal process. Until then, Ada and Calvo are on course to take office, and Republicans can count Guam as the first gubernatorial pickup on the Election Day board.
For Republicans watching the first returns of Election Day, the board opened with a pickup instead of a hold.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
The post JUST IN: Election Day Opens With a GOP Governorship Pickup appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.
Continue reading...
[H/T 100PercentFedUp]
