How Democrats (Just Barely) Flipped America’s Most Expensive House Seat

Mother Jones illustration; Paul Bersebach/The Orange County Register/AP; Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG/Getty

In late November, more than three weeks after Election Day, GOP Rep. Michelle Steel conceded to Democrat Derek Tran in one of the most hotly contested US House races in the country. In the end, Tran won by roughly 650 votes in Southern California’s 45th congressional district, making it one of the country’s closest contests and helping ensure that the Republican House majority will be among the narrowest in history. 

In an election cycle in which Republicans made big gains in California and among Asian-American voters nationwide, the CA-45 race stood out. As I reported in October, this majority-minority district—encompassing more than a dozen cities in Orange and Los Angeles counties—is home to a population that is 39 percent Asian American and Pacific Islander. About half of this group is Vietnamese, including many immigrants who came to the United States fleeing communist rule after the Vietnam War. In recent years, the district has become known for clashes over Asian identity and red-baiting, a strategy routinely employed by Steel’s backers, in particular. Vietnamese-language signs populate street corners and mailers are sent to households insinuating that candidates hold communist sympathies. 

Amid the countless post-election analyses examining demographic shifts among voters, what has stuck with me the most is something that Jeanie Le, a board member with Orange County Young Democrats, told me months prior to the CA-45 vote: “We all fit in these diverse categories…but we are not a monolith. There’s so much happening in our community, and I just really want to make sure that when people write about this community, they reflect that.”

Still, the battles over identity were unavoidable. Democrats bet that Tran’s personal biography—a US Army veteran and the son of Vietnamese refugees—could help him withstand Steel’s anti-communist attacks and give him a better chance at connecting with Vietnamese voters. And indeed, Tran outperformed Jay Chen, a Taiwanese American who was the Democratic nominee in 2022, in the Republican-leaning cities of Westminster and Garden Grove in Little Saigon.

Bich-Tram Le, a host and commentator for Nguoi Viet Daily News in Little Saigon, said that although Steel had many local Vietnamese leaders on her side, “the elders—they have a sense of patriotism—wanted to put a son of Vietnamese refugees into Congress.” Le said that these sentiments fueled a door-to-door campaign in support of Tran. “They really want to do whatever they can to help the next generation build up the community and a voice and Vietnamese vote because they feel that is part of their duty.”

In the lead-up to November, LAist found through a public records review that—while on the Orange County Board of Supervisors during the height of the pandemic—Steel had awarded a $1.2 million contract for meals for seniors to a marketing and printing company involved in her congressional election campaign.

Le helped organize multiple protests against Steel in which hundreds of people in Little Saigon showed up to oppose the Republican’s red-baiting tactics and Covid scandal. There were also counter-protesters supporting Steel at many of these events. Le, along with others, made talk show appearances on Vietnamese-language broadcasts to lay out what they saw as Steel’s transgressions.

According to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance and lobbying data, CA-45 was the most expensive US House race this cycle, with the candidates and their supporters spending a combined total of $46 million. Elon Musk’s America PAC spent nearly $800,000 supporting Steel’s campaign and more than $500,000 opposing Tran, while the pro-cryptocurrency super PAC Fairshake spent roughly $2.8 million helping Steel. 

Many in the district believed all along that the race would be one of the closest in the country. “I drive through my parts of CA-45, and I see both candidates’ signs everywhere,” said Nathan Bui, the communications director for the Orange County Young Democrats. “And our opinion [at OCYD] was it was going to come down to a field margin and turnout.”

That’s exactly what happened. On election night, Tran led by 4,000 votes but was trailing Steel by 10,000 a day later. “It looked pretty bad for us at one point, but then we knew it wasn’t over because there were still 100,000 votes left to be counted,” said Le. Slowly, as more votes were tabulated, Tran clawed his way back until finally taking a lead on November 16. 

This brought baseless allegations of election fraud from the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). But Steel conceded the race on November 27. In a statement on X, she wrote that she’d “embarked on a mission to assist First Generation Americans, stand up to our adversaries, and defend human rights.” She also said she was grateful to “work on behalf of legal immigrants and struggling families.” For his part, Tran tweeted that “only in America can you go from refugees fleeing with nothing but the clothes on your back to becoming a member of Congress in just one generation.”

Bui views the election results in CA-45 as a call for change. “That’s why we saw a Trump-Tran split,” he said, pointing out that many Vietnamese voters in Little Saigon chose the Republican presidential candidate but also voted for Tran. “It was just a shift away from incumbents, especially because Michelle was not particularly a popular incumbent to fight for, considering all the scandals.” 

Bui thinks the results indicate a notable shift in the district. “We’re seeing a change of the politics in Little Saigon. The old guard of people—conservative candidates for all these positions in Orange County—have mainly been a lot of the same people,” he said. “I think when we see these scandals against these people who you know are connected to one another, it kind of disillusions voters.” 

When I asked him what he wants from Tran and his fellow Democrats, Bui recognized that it would be difficult to enact laws in Republican-dominated Washington. “I think there’s still a lot of things that he can do that can push the district in a better place,” Bui told me. “He can really support the organizations and the people in this district that will be able to invest in more progressive policies that young people care about.”