Wrapping up one of the more contentious races during his 20-year tenure in the House of Representatives, Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon led democratic challenger Lee Rogers with 55.5 percent of the vote in the 25th Congressional District race, with 93.8 percent of the districts reported.

“When you’re given the honor of being elected, it makes you feel good and what the people are saying, I think, is that they like the job you’re doing, and they want to keep supporting you,” McKeon said Tuesday amid well-wishers at his Hyatt Regency Valencia election party.

“It’s a great feeling,” he said. “But now it means you have to go out and do the things you said you were going to do.”

This race was a little bit closer for the 10-term incumbent, and reverses the trend of his last two races. McKeon’s last two wins were over Democrat Jackie Conaway. McKeon captured 57.7 percent of the vote in 2008, and 61.8 percent of the vote in 2010.

Early on Tuesday evening, McKeon took an initial lead with mail-in ballots, but Rogers remained optimistic while awaiting results with his supporters at Salt Creek Grille in Valencia.

“I’m never over-confident, but what I think is that it’s gonna be really close and I’m going to wait for more of the results to come in before I gain any more confidence than that,” Rogers said at about 9 p.m. after getting off to slow start.

With 93 percent of the districts tallied, McKeon received 92,628 votes, while Rogers had 74,322.