With re-districting complete, the stage is set for ambitious politicians to make their play for elected office and already two elected officials from Fountain Valley and Westminster have announced they will jump into the race for a newly drawn Assembly District, which includes Los Alamitos and Rossmoor, but, according to the Orange County Register, seems to be centered around the Little Saigon area.
Westminster Mayor Tri Ta and Fountain Valley Councilman Ted Bui both announced plans this week to run to represent the 70th Assembly District. Both are well known within the Vietnamese community, although Ta is deemed more controversial. Both are also Republicans in a district that is pegged as 36.8% Dem voters and 33.2% GOP. This overlooks that almost another third are Independents who generally tend to be lean conservative.
The area is now largely represented by Assemblywoman Janet Nguyen, R-Huntington Beach, but her home was drawn out of the Assembly district during a once-in-a-decade redistricting process which was finalized just a few weeks ago. Nguyen announced Dec. 21 that she would run for a new coastal state Senate seat.
It looks like Republicans have agreed to have Young Kim run in the revised 40th Congressional District and Michelle Steele to run in the revised 45th District. Kim was redistricted out of her hometown of La Habra and much of her district placed into a revised 40th. The new 40th Kim stretches from south Orange County to include both Yorba Linda and Chino Hills in San Bernardino County and where voter registration is expected to lean Republican by about six percentage points.
Steel, who represented the primarily coastal 48th District, had much of her Asian (and more Republican) base in Little Saigon and Fountain Valley removed and replaced with a more liberal chunk of Irvine in the new 47th. In the 45th Steel will still find her Little Saigon bloc, as well as a strong Asian electorate in Cypress and Cerritos. Per Roll Call, the district’s voting-age Asian population is nearly double that of Steel’s existing seat (41 percent versus 23 percent),
In news for Congressional District 45 (which includes Seal Beach), Katie Porter announced she will not run in her current slightly Democrat 40th District, and instead run in a evised even more Democrat 47th which now includes her hometown of Irvine. This motivated former District 48 Rep. Harley Rouda (who was defeated by Michelle Steele in 2020) to announce he will suspend his campaign to regain his old coastal area seat. However Republican Scott Baugh announced he will take on Porter.
