WESTMINSTER, California – President Joe Biden’s disco-era opposition to resettling Vietnamese refugees in the United States is ancient political history to most voters, if they’ve heard about it at all. But not for a small yet politically potent group in Southern California’s Little Saigon.
It’s living history for immigrants from Vietnam after the war, and their children and grandchildren, who have long played a central role politically in Orange County, the former Republican haven that is now highly competitive between the two parties. The community has trended strongly Republican, a result of fierce anti-communist sentiment among the initial refugees who settled in the northern Orange County cities of Westminster and Garden Grove and the surrounding areas.
Those older political allegiances, though, will be tested in the campaign for the inland western Orange County 45th Congressional District, represented by Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA). Steel’s November opponent will be decided in California’s March 5 all-party primary, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the November ballot.
But the leading Democratic candidate, attorney Derek Tran, is the son of Vietnamese immigrants, which gives Democrats an “in” with a group of voters that’s not traditionally been super supportive. It’s an intriguing subplot in the fight for the district, which includes the lower southeastern edge of Los Angeles County (about 11% of the population) and then winds down through the northern tier of Orange County, taking in the cities of Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, and Westminster, among others.
“You can basically split it into two camps. There’s the older generation, the ones who came here after ’75 like I did, those who were born in Vietnam, who I think would be more Republican-leaning,” said former Louisiana Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, a Republican who fled war-ravaged Saigon as a child. “There’s also the younger generation. Those that were born here in the U.S. are more Democratic-leaning.”
Former President Donald Trump’s political rise, including his bid this year for a White House return, has only increased that generational chasm, Cao said in an interview.
“The younger generation, though they are more Democratic-leaning, they don’t tend to vote that much,” said Cao, one of two Vietnamese Americans to serve in the House, along with ex-Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a Florida Democrat who represented an Orlando-area district from 2017-23. “There is deep animosity with China … due to the long history.”
As for the older generations that do vote, “They are pro-Trump because they feel Trump was very strong against China. And with the older Vietnamese, China will always remain public enemy No. 1,” added the former congressman, who now runs the CAO Law Firm in Harvey, Louisiana, about seven miles south of New Orleans. “Vietnam was under Chinese domination for more than 1,000 years. They were always viewed as a big bully in the neighborhood.”
The fight for the 45th is crucial to both parties’ plans to win the majority in November, in parallel to the likely White House rematch between Biden and Trump. House Republicans will likely hold a slim 221-214 edge when three currently open seats are filled in special elections.
Both sides are optimistic about winning the House district, a swath of suburbia and exurbia south of Los Angeles bisected by bustling, and often traffic-stalled, freeways — and one of the most diverse districts in California. Asian Americans are about 38.44% of the district’s population, which is also 30.04% Latino, 25.21% white, and 2.12% black, per the Almanac of American Politics 2024.
Steel is a longtime Republican activist in the area and was a member of various commissions in former President George W. Bush’s administration. Steel also is a proven vote-getter. In 2006, Steel was elected to the California State Board of Equalization — the only publicly elected tax commission in the U.S. In 2014, Steel was elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
Steel was born in Seoul and raised in South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. In 2020, Steel was among the first three Korean American women in Congress, along with Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), who represents the neighboring eastern Orange County 40th Congressional District, and Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-WA), of the Tacoma suburbs and Olympia 10th Congressional District.
Tran is a consumer rights attorney and Army veteran with obviously strong ties to the local Vietnamese American community. His campaign website features a section in Vietnamese. As for platforms and campaign themes, Tran’s campaign site describes his political and policy approach this way: “In Congress, Derek will work to reduce the costs of prescription drugs, protect a woman’s right to choose, and expand coverage, because healthcare is a right, not a privilege.”
The area’s political demographics increasingly favor Democrats. In 2020, Biden would have beaten Trump in the district 52.1% to 46%. It was one of 17 House districts that would have voted for Biden but were won by a congressional Republican in 2022. Voter registration in the district is 37.85% Democratic, 32.19% Republican, and 24.60% “No Party Preference,” according to the California secretary of state.
A nationalized election
Favorable political demographics alone, though, won’t be enough for a Democrat to win. There’s that residual allegiance to Republicans among many on the old guard of the Vietnamese community. This is where Biden’s long-ago and seemingly forgotten Senate vote comes in.
The president, as a 32-year-old freshman senator from Delaware, cast it against the Vietnam Contingency Act of 1975. The proposal from President Gerald Ford’s administration, considered in Congress just days before the fall of Saigon to communist forces, would have provided emergency funds for evacuation and aid in Vietnam.
Biden was within the mainstream of Democratic opinion at the time. High-profile opponents of allowing Vietnamese refugees into the country included 1972 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. George McGovern and California Gov. Jerry Brown.
Many in Little Saigon likely don’t even remember the legislative specifics of that nearly half-century-old Senate vote. But they sure recall the general sentiment of hostility to the taking in of Vietnamese refugees. And Biden, having been in office back then, could be a convenient channel for lingering skepticism among some Vietnamese Americans about voting Democratic — even if the parties, in the Trump era, have in many ways flipped when it comes to fighting totalitarianism abroad, with some congressional Republicans, for example, now more opposed to sending military aid to Ukraine for its 2-year-old defensive war against Russia.
Nationally, second- and third-generation Vietnamese Americans may not necessarily hold the same grudges against Democrats, as Cao noted. They’re voters to be wooed like any others, which polling data also show.
While 68% of Vietnamese American voters aged 50 and older identified as or leaned Republican, 58% of younger voters identified as or leaned Democratic, according to data used to compile the May 25, 2023, Pew Research Center study on voter attitudes of Asian Americans.
Overall, the poll found Vietnamese American voters to be less supportive of Democrats than other Asian American voters.
“About half of Vietnamese American registered voters are Republicans or lean to the GOP — the highest share across the five largest Asian origin groups in the United States,” the report said. “Overall, about six-in-ten Asian American registered voters (62%) identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and 34% are Republicans or GOP leaners, according to a Pew Research Center survey of Asian adults conducted from July 2022 to January 2023.”
Steel has paid attention to the Vietnamese American community over three-plus years in Congress. She was a co-sponsor of the 2021 Vietnam Human Rights Act, which, like most bills introduced in Congress, did not become law. She also is the sponsor of a 2023 resolution, pending in a House committee, “recognizing the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag as the official symbol of the Vietnamese American community in the United States.”
More broadly, the congresswoman has styled herself a political bridge-builder. For instance, in December she introduced legislation with Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) to expedite the development of geothermal energy. Steel also introduced legislation, again working with Lee, the Hire Student Veterans Act, to provide a tax credit to businesses that hire part-time veterans who are using their VA-administered educational benefits.
How much local versus national concerns dominate the race remains to be seen. The 45th Congressional District race, though, joined the national limelight with a Jan. 12 New York Times story that focused on Steel and her support for an anti-abortion proposal in the House. The Life at Conception Act would, supporters say, define life as beginning at conception and ensure the unborn are protected under the 14th Amendment. Opponents contend the proposal would, if enacted, effectively be a nationwide abortion ban.
Steel is among 124 co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act, adding her signature on Jan. 12 to the legislation sponsored by Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV). She is the only co-sponsor from one of the 17 districts Biden would have won in 2020.
Steel backed a similar anti-abortion measure in 2021, during her first House term. But that was before the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which ended abortion as a national right, with limitations, as had been the case for 49 years under Roe v. Wade. The Dobbs ruling effectively made it a matter for states to decide. A swath of Republican-controlled states have since outlawed the procedure, entirely or with some exceptions.
“Michelle Steel supported a national abortion ban that does not provide exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother — twice. Her extreme record speaks for itself,” Tran told the Washington Examiner magazine.
A Steel campaign spokesman, Lance Trover, dismissed the criticism of the congresswoman’s approach to abortion legislation. He tied it to other jabs against Steel over the years, including news stories about her 2022 Democratic opponent mocking her accent at an April campaign event that year, which he denied.
“From willfully distorting her record to mocking her accent, Washington Democrats for two cycles have literally thrown everything including the kitchen sink at Michelle,” Trover said in a statement to the Washington Examiner magazine. “What they fail to grasp is that Southern California voters trust her and know that when it comes to the big issues of taking on the Chinese Communist Party, fighting to lower the cost of living for working families, or simply standing up for common sense, Michelle is their number one advocate.”
Other critics have lumped in Steel’s support for the abortion bill with her broadly conservative voting record, which they call a poor fit for the more centrist district.
Steel “has not been a positive force for the region or for the nation,” said a Jan. 29 Los Angeles Times editorial about the congressional race. “In 2021, she voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It passed anyway, and when it brought more than $8 million to her district in 2022, Steel claimed credit.” (The newspaper in the same piece endorsed a Tran rival to face off against Steel in November.)
Incumbency has its advantages
One area in which Steel has a distinct advantage is campaign fundraising. Steel raised more than $1 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. It was the latest strong fundraising quarter from Steel, who has brought in $4.4 million this cycle. Steel ended 2023 with nearly $3.1 million on hand. That will be helpful in paying for ads in the pricy Los Angeles television and radio markets.
Tran, who entered the race in October 2023, in the final quarter of 2023 raised a bit over $535,000, Federal Election Commission reports show. His campaign has just over $364,000 in cash on hand. Contributions include $1,000 for the primary from the campaign of Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), of the western San Gabriel Valley 28th Congressional District, about an hour’s drive north of the seat Tran is trying to win. Chu is chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and in 2022 campaigned in person for Steel’s Democratic opponent.
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Tran, as the son of Vietnamese immigrants, has an opening to make his case to the local community in a way other Democratic candidates might not, said Cao, who in 2008 won his New Orleans-based House seat after the Democratic incumbent was indicted on federal corruption charges, only to lose two years later.
“Even though a Vietnamese American is running against Congresswoman Steel, it’s not 100% certain that the Vietnamese American community will automatically vote for him,” Cao said. “He should not take it for granted. He has to convince people why.”
