State Senator Aisha Wahab has officially been declared the winner of Tuesday's special runoff election to fill the remainder of former Congressman Eric Swalwell's term that ends in January, representing much of Alameda County.

Wahab was the clear favorite to win, however she won by a far slimmer margin in this runoff than she did in the special election that preceded it in mid-June, or in the early June primary for the seat's subsequent term.

With 95% of the votes tallied, Wahab won with 53% of the vote on Tuesday, six points off ahead of Hernandez, who had 46.9%. That's compared to the 26 points that Wahab led by in the June 16 special election that preceded this runoff.

As SFist reported earlier this week, Wahab's opponent, BART Board President Melissa Hernandez, has been the beneficiary of a large sum of attack-ad spending from AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), funding that seems motivated largely by Wahab's Muslim identity, and her having called Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide. The ads focused on attacking Wahab's voting record in the California legislature, and misrepresenting it as being soft on crime and sex trafficking.

Political watchers say that AIPAC may also simply be flexing its financial muscle as a warning to other progressive Democrats, however it's especially curious given that neither Hernandez nor Wahab have made Gaza any sort of talking point in their campaigns. (Hernandez has said she believes Israel went too far in their retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, but stopped short of calling it a genocide.)

As Wahab told Politico of the AIPAC money, "On every single credential, I am the most qualified. So what’s the elephant in the room? At the end of the day, all I can say is that it’s based on prejudice and racism."

Wahab and Hernandez will now face off one more time in November, in the race for the two-year term in Congress representing California's 14th District. That race is likely to see further spending on attack ads to damage Wahab, though it's not likely that the result will much different than Tuesday's.

Democratic political consultant Jim Ross told the Chronicle this week that Tuesday's runoff was a test of what that AIPAC's ad spending could do — and he suggested that if it brought Hernandez within five points of Wahab, that meant she could still be a viable candidate in November. How about six points?

Previously: Race to Replace Eric Swalwell In Congress Turns Ugly as Voters Head to Polls Once More