By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff

Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock clinched victory for the open House seat in California’s 4th Congressional District Wednesday, when Democratic opponent Charlie Brown conceded the race.

McClintock’s win — which will continue the Republicans’ hold on the seat left open by retiring nine-term Rep. John T. Doolittle — came as a protracted count of absentee and provisional ballots showed him maintaining the lead he established over Brown in the initial canvass.

The conclusion of this contest leaves just one Nov. 4 House election without a decision: the open-seat race to succeed retiring eight-term Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce in Ohio’s 15th District. Republican Steve Stivers has held a very narrow lead over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, with a dispute over the counting of provisional ballots delaying a final verdict.

The 2008 House campaign will finally end on Saturday in Louisiana, with a competitive race for an open Republican seat in the 4th District and a contest for the 2nd District seat that is expected to go to Democratic incumbent William J. Jefferson . Both of these elections are being held in December because the scheduled September primary was delayed by Hurricane Gustav.

The Democrats overall have clinched a big net gain of at least 21 seats in this year’s House elections, stretching their majority to at least 256 seats in the 111th Congress that convenes next month. Republicans have a lock on 176 seats, including the California 4 seat now officially claimed by McClintock.

It appeared that outcome in that race might be delayed even longer than it was. McClintock and Brown each expressed a desire to see that all provisional and absentee ballots were counted before taking further action, and both candidates attended orientation sessions held last month for incoming House freshman.

Counties were required to finish their tallies Dec. 2 and transmit results to California’s Secretary of State by Dec. 9. Certification is scheduled for Dec. 13.

But Brown, after closing to within a few hundred votes of McClintock at one point in the count, decided to concede after totals released Tuesday showed McClintock with a lead of 1,576 votes out of 367,510 cast, or 50.3 to 49.7 percent.

“A short time ago, I called Sen. Tom McClintock to congratulate him on a hard-fought victory, and to wish him well in Congress,” Brown, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, wrote in an e-mail message to supporters.

McClintock was helped in his House bid by the generally strong conservative and Republican leanings of voters in the northeastern California district. He ran in the 2003 recall election for governor as the top statewide conservative candidate, finishing behind Arnold Schwarzenegger , the more moderate Republican who won the contest, and Democrat Cruz Bustamante, then the state’s lieutenant governor.

He also didn’t have the political baggage that had weighted down Doolittle, who long dominated his House elections but faced difficult questions about his past ties to convicted Washington influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. Brown, though a first-time candidate for public office when he challenged Doolittle in 2006, came within 3 percentage points of winning that race and almost immediately began campaigning for what he presumed would be a rematch in 2008.

Although this was one case in which the incumbent party’s prospects appeared to improve when the incumbent opted out of running for re-election, Brown was able to keep the race close by contending that his center-right views better fit the district than McClintock’s strongly conservative positions. He also sought to portray McClintock, whose longtime political base was in far-off Southern California, as a political carpetbagger.