By Randall Yip, Executive Editor
In a race both Democrats and Republicans believe could determine which party controls the House in the next Congressional session, Republican incumbent Michelle Steel has pulled ahead of Derek Tran (D) with 52.6% of the vote and 64% of the vote counted.
With 48% of the votes counted, Tran previously led with 85,911 votes to Steel’s 83,420, or 50.7% to 49.3%.
He is an army veteran who enlisted at the age of 18 without telling his parents. His story is a familiar one in California’s District 45 which includes Little Saigon.
He is the son of Vietnamese refugees who fled Communist Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Tran said he saw first hand the benefits of government assistance and hopes that through public service he can give back to the country that gave so much to his family.
He describes his passion for serving the community as “always advocating for the underdog,”
A victory by the Democrat Tran could give representation to the Vietnamese American community that has traditionally leaned Republican.
Steel is going for her third term in Congress. She served as a Trump delegate during the GOP convention, but this Republican generally declines to comment whenever reporters reach out to her about the former president’s latest comments or positions. In her two terms in Congress, she has never granted an interview or even emailed a statement to AsAmNews.
Part of her outreach to the Vietnamese American community is to position herself as anti-Communist and has wrapped herself around the South Vietnamese flag.
In both her 2022 campaign against Jay Chen, a Taiwanese American, and this time against Tran, she has been accused of red baiting and using McCarthy-like tactics.
In turn, she has accused Tran of falsely labeling her husband as being closely aligned with China because of his outreach to the business community there.
This coverage was made possible by a grant through the URL Collective, a nonprofit supporting local, diverse media. AsAmNews and URL Collective have partnered to bring you election reporting from grassroots media.
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