May 13, 2020 | 5:13pm
Former Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia won Katie Hill’s former Congress seat.
Cynthia Smalley/Mike Garcia For Congress via AP
A Republican has won the vacated House seat of former Democratic Rep. Katie Hill — the Southern California lawmaker who stepped down last year amid intense scrutiny over her “throuple” relationship with her now-estranged husband and a female staffer.
Former Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia managed to flip the seat after closing polls showed him ahead with a comfortable 12-point lead and state Assemblywoman Christy Smith conceded the election Wednesday.
“We believe that the current tally shows Mike Garcia is the likely victor in the May 12 special election,” she said in a statement. “As such, I’d like to congratulate him.”
Garcia will now finish Hill’s term after she resigned from Congress in October last year amid allegations she was in a three-way relationship with her husband and a female staffer. He faces re-election in November.
“Big Congressional win in California for Mike Garcia, taking back a seat from the Democrats. This is the first time in many years that a California Dem seat has flipped back to a Republican,” President Trump tweeted earlier Wednesday.
California’s 25th congressional district, which stretches across Northern Los Angeles, was a Republican stronghold for two decades before Hill flipped the seat in the 2018 midterms.
The former congresswoman was also accused of having an affair with a separate legislative aide in her office — a charge she vehemently denied.
The scandal sparked a House Ethics Committee probe, with Hill blaming the leaks on her estranged husband.
