Representative Michelle Steel is facing her toughest fight yet in a crucial swing district in Orange County, Calif., where Vietnamese American voters hold so much sway that Little Saigon has become the center of the campaign.
Ms. Steel, a two-term Republican congresswoman, is facing Derek Tran, a Democrat who served in the Army and is a second-generation Vietnamese American. Democrats are hoping that the veteran son of Vietnamese refugees will be a compelling sell to Vietnamese American voters in California’s 45th District.
In the final weeks before the election, the race has grown hostile, and Ms. Steel has taken the unexpected tack of insisting that she is more attuned to Vietnamese Americans as a first-generation Korean American whose parents fled Communist-run North Korea. She says that she has long represented Little Saigon, an enclave that bridges the cities of Westminster and Garden Grove, and knows the neighborhood better than her opponent.
She has also tried to portray Mr. Tran as a Communist sympathizer despite having little evidence, a tactic heavily criticized as “redbaiting” that she used to great effect two years ago when she beat another Democratic challenger who was Asian American.
Mr. Tran, a consumer rights lawyer, has leaned heavily on his Vietnamese roots. His main campaign sign echoes the yellow and red-striped flag of South Vietnam — intended to remind voters that the candidate with one of the most common Vietnamese surnames is one of their own.
He has taken particular umbrage at Ms. Steel’s claim to Vietnamese authenticity.
“She comes into our community and she tells us, ‘I know what it’s like to be an immigrant like you all,’” Mr. Tran said in an interview this month at a restaurant in Little Saigon. “No, you do not. You did not lose your country.”
Though the Asian American population has grown dramatically in recent decades, it is still rare in the United States to have two candidates of Asian descent face off in a congressional general election outside of Hawaii. It is even more rare to have it happen in a pivotal district. Last month, the Cook Political Report, a group of nonpartisan forecasters, declared the 45th congressional district a “tossup” instead of “lean Republican,” lifting Democratic hopes that the seat could be flipped.
The dynamics have made for a most unusual battle in which the candidates are leveraging issues of immigrant identity to make their case. Nearly 40 percent of the district’s residents are of Asian descent, including about 17 percent who identify as Vietnamese.
Vietnamese American voters have traditionally leaned Republican, backing the party for its strong anti-Communist rhetoric and conservative economic and social values. But that support has eroded as younger generations of Vietnamese Americans have reached voting age. Democrats are also hoping that Mr. Tran will appeal to some older voters who want to elect the district’s first Vietnamese American representative.
“A lot of Vietnamese Americans are going to have to choose between a Vietnamese American and the Republican Party,” said Long T. Bui, a professor of global and international studies at the University of California, Irvine. “That’s going to be a hard choice for them.”
Two years ago, Ms. Steel depicted her Taiwanese American opponent, Jay Chen, as a Chinese Communist sympathizer. Mr. Chen and Asian American groups accused Ms. Steel of “redbaiting” and reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners just as anti-Asian hate incidents were increasing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Chen, a Democrat, was accused of mocking Ms. Steel’s accent after he said at a campaign event that people needed “an interpreter to figure out exactly what she’s saying.” Mr. Chen later said that he meant he did not understand her policies.
Mr. Chen lost to Ms. Steel by more than 4 percentage points. In a recent interview, Mr. Chen, a Navy reservist, attributed his loss partly to his failure to gain traction within the Vietnamese American community.
“It was very clear that she was targeting the Vietnamese population with the redbaiting ads,” Mr. Chen said. “And it had a real impact on the race.”
This time, the polls are closer than they were two years ago in the district, and Democrats point to positive coverage of Mr. Tran in the local Vietnamese-language news media, which remains heavily influential in the community.
But Ms. Steel still has the advantage of incumbency and of being a familiar voice in Orange County circles. She has received large contributions this cycle from a crypto-funded super PAC and Elon Musk’s America PAC, and she has strong donor connections through her husband, Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party. She declined interview requests.
In Congress, Ms. Steel has a conservative voting record, though she has moved toward the middle as her seat has become more vulnerable. After the primary in March, she withdrew her support from the Life at Conception Act, a bill that amounts to a nationwide abortion ban, which she cosponsored twice. She now says that abortion rights should be left to the states.
She has sponsored annual resolutions commemorating the fall of Saigon, served as co-chairwoman of the Congressional Vietnam Caucus and introduced a resolution condemning the Vietnamese government’s human rights abuses.
“Her record speaks for itself,” said Tri Ta, a Republican state assemblyman and Vietnamese immigrant who supports Ms. Steel. “On the issue of human rights, she has vocally opposed Chinese Communists and Vietnamese Communists for the last four years. The people see that.”
Despite receiving criticism in 2022, Ms. Steel has again tried to portray her challenger as a Communist sympathizer. She recently sent a mailer that features an image of Mr. Tran alongside one of Mao Zedong, the former chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. Another flier makes a tenuous claim that Mr. Tran is supported by an American Communist Party official.
“I really think it’s backfiring a little,” said Julie Vo, chief of staff for OC Action, a progressive group that has endorsed Mr. Tran. “A lot of folks feel pretty tired of these old tactics.”
Ms. Steel also has tried to undercut the authenticity of Mr. Tran’s experience as a second-generation Vietnamese American who was born in the United States.
She has seized on questions over Mr. Tran’s claim that he speaks fluent Vietnamese, pointing to past interviews with Vietnamese-language news media in which Mr. Tran appeared to rely on interpreters. Mr. Tran said in an interview that while Vietnamese was his first language, he used translators to ensure that his message on high-level topics like immigration and foreign policy was conveyed clearly.
“I am more Vietnamese than my opponent,” Ms. Steel said during an appearance on a Vietnamese television program earlier this month. “My opponent might have Vietnamese name, but you know what? I understand Vietnamese community.”
In interviews with more than a dozen voters in Little Saigon, however, no one — including supporters of Ms. Steel — seemed to be convinced by the attempts to minimize Mr. Tran’s ties to the Vietnamese community.
“My son was born here, too,” said Andy Nguyen, 58, a registered independent who owns an auto repair shop in Westminster, Calif., and is planning to vote for Mr. Tran because he admires his military service. “He understands fluently in Vietnamese but he just cannot pronounce like us.”
There were signs, too, that Mr. Tran’s appeals based on identity had its limits.
David Truong, the owner of a jewelry store in Fountain Valley, Calif., said he is primarily concerned about his ability to carry on his family business at a moment when he finds government regulations to be hostile. He said he supports Ms. Steel because he believes she understands his concerns and he knows her.
“I don’t care if you’re a Republican or you’re a Democrat,” Mr. Truong said. “I just need the government to be making common-sense decisions for the backbone of the economy, which is small, local businesses.”
Hoang Tran, 82, a retired crabber and airline maintenance worker who has long been a Republican voter, said he was still supporting Ms. Steel. He took issue with another part of Mr. Tran’s identity.
“I’m a Tran, too, but I don’t like him,” Hoang Tran said. “I don’t like lawyers.”
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