The race was expected to be highly competitive as it is a purple suburban district. Both House Democrats and House Republicans listed California's 45th district among their highest-priority districts in the 2024 election.[4][5]Joe Biden carried this district by a 6% margin in the 2020 presidential election.[6] Steel was one of 17 House Republicans representing a Biden-won district.[7] At the local level, however, the 45th district has trended Republican, voting for Republicans in every state race in 2022.[8]
Primary election
At the end of 2023, Tran announced that he would enter the primary in a bid to become the party's nominee for the U.S. Representative seat in California's 45th congressional district.[9] In March, Tran secured his position as the Democratic nominee, beating another candidate, Kim Nguyen-Penaloza, by 366 votes to face incumbent Republican Steel.[10]
After the March primary, Democrat Tran would face incumbent Michelle Steel, a Republican running for a third term.[73] The district is considered a "battleground district" insofar as it was won by Joe Biden in 2020 but has its seat occupied by a member of the Republican Party.[74] Tran's campaign has emphasized the centrality of his Vietnamese American identity to his bid, as the district encompasses parts of Los Angeles County and Orange County and is considered a majority-minority district, including cities Westminster and Garden Grove, which have predominantly Vietnamese American communities, as well as Artesia and Cerritos where Asian Americans are the largest demographic by race.[75][76]ABC 7 reported that the district was 39% Asian.[77]
Both Steel and Tran vied for support from the district's Vietnamese community, with Steel claiming she understood and worked with the Vietnamese community in the district much better than Tran provoking Tran to respond that the claim was "insulting and disgraceful."[77] The Asian American Action Fund subsequently condemned Steel's comments.[74] In August 2024, the New York Post called out Tran for bringing a translator with him to interviews and events, questioning whether he was actually fluent in Vietnamese.[78] Steel's campaign additionally used Tran's false claims of proficiency as a point of criticism.[79] At the end of August, Tran admitted to the Los Angeles Times that he had lost his childhood fluency and has since spoken "broken Vietnamese."[80] However, Tran's campaign additionally provided a series of video clips in which Tran spoke Vietnamese on television.[81]
The candidates exchanged accusations of communist sympathies. Tran accused Steel's husband, Shawn, of accepting bribes from the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for information, stating that Steel thus could not be trusted with political office in the United States.[82][83] He also drew distinctions between his own family background to that of Steel's, stating that Steel immigrated to the United States for "economic gain" while his family were refugees fleeing communism.[84] Several Asian American leaders and organizations subsequently condemned the comment.[85] Later, on October 22, 2024, the Los Angeles Times reported that Steel's campaign was sending out campaign mailers associating Tran with Mao Zedong and accusing him of supporting socialism. Following Tran's disclosure in August that he held cryptocurrencies, Steel also claimed that his cryptocurrency assets were bound up in China.[82] Steel defended her accusation asserting it was provoked by Tran's earlier messaging.[86] The mutual accusations caused several Asian American nonprofits to pen a letter to both parties stating that such rhetoric should not be used in the race.[77]
In October, Hakeem Jeffries stumped for Tran at a party event in Anaheim, stating that the race would be close.[87]Bill Clinton also appeared in Orange County to stump for Tran as well as Dave Min, a state senator in a similarly tight race.[88]
Tran went on to win the general election in one of the tightest battles in the 2024 cycle.
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