Two children of Vietnamese refugees face off in OC congressional race

California has just a handful of truly competitive congressional races this year, as a nationwide redistricting battle and a new map approved under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 have reshaped the electoral landscape. The tightest contests are in the Central Valley and San Diego County, but the fight also extends to Orange County, a onetime Republican stronghold where Democratic Rep. Derek Tran is defending his seat.

This year marks the first time two Vietnamese Americans are running to represent the district, which includes Little Saigon, the largest concentration of people of Vietnamese ancestry outside of Vietnam. Roughly 13% of the district’s population is Vietnamese, according to Census Bureau data.

Tran and his Republican challenger Chuong Vo are both children of Vietnamese refugees who fled after the Fall of Saigon in the 1970s. Both grew up in households that relied on public assistance, but they draw very different lessons from that experience, which is reflected in their approach to policy. Tran opposed Republican cuts to government assistance programs under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, while Vo touts the benefits of President Donald Trump’s signature legislation, which included trillions of dollars in tax cuts over the next decade.

“Thank God for the Big Beautiful Bill this year because I don’t know about you, but I got some money back for the first time ever,” Vo told supporters at a Gardena restaurant in April. In an interview with Capital & Main, Vo attributed his family’s success to hard work combined with government support when they needed a bit of help.

“When I was young, my whole family was on welfare. Of course, we were refugees. We came here with nothing,” Vo said. “But we made sure that we got off the system.”

The contest reflects a familiar ideological divide between Democrats and Republicans, but it is unfolding against an especially aggressive attack on the safety net. H.R. 1, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, partially paid for tax breaks by slashing over $1 trillion from social programs, including Medicaid and food assistance.

As a result of those cuts, an estimated 44,008 people in the district could lose health insurance by 2034, according to an analysis by the Joint Economic Committee in Congress. Refugees — as both candidates’ parents once were — are no longer eligible for Medicaid or SNAP benefits funded with federal money (although California will continue to fund Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, for some immigrants). 

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To Tran, who voted against H.R. 1, the cuts serve as a reminder of his own former reliance on government support. “I grew up on those safety net programs that the Republicans are trying to cut, whether it’s WIC [the nutrition program for low-income women and children], whether it’s Section 8 housing, you know, food stamps. That was my childhood, because that was what was required for us to be able to survive in this country, right?” Tran told volunteers during a campaign event in Garden Grove on Sept. 26.

Over a third of District 45 residents rely on Medi-Cal, according to 2025 data from the California Health Care Foundation. More than one in 10 rely on SNAP, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In the Vietnamese community in particular, many have depended on social welfare programs, said Bich-Tram Le, an anchor and news commentator at Orange County’s largest Vietnamese-language news source, Nguoi Viet.

Almost 80% of Vietnamese immigrants in the U.S. are citizens, but among Vietnamese households led by a noncitizen, 47% rely on one or more welfare programs, the highest rate among Asian immigrant households, according to a 2026 report by the Center for Immigration Studies.

“People in our community will get hurt because of those cuts,” Le said.

Despite Vo’s public support for H.R. 1, his campaign website says that he will vote to “protect Social Security and Medicare for today’s seniors.” He told Capital & Main that he sees those programs as distinct from income-targeted public assistance programs because workers contribute to them.

“Social Security is an earned benefit,” Vo said. “It shouldn’t be given to those that didn’t earn it.”

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The 45th Congressional District was solidly Republican since its creation in 1983. That changed, however, in 2018, when voters elected a Democrat for the first time. Since then, voters have swung back and forth between red and blue when selecting their representative in the House.

Most of District 45 is in Orange County, but it also includes a small corner of southeast L.A. County. In the redrawn district, 38.6% of registered voters are Democrats and 30.4% are Republicans, according to the California Secretary of State’s Office. The remaining 31% of voters are either independents or have no party affiliation. Those are the voters Chuong and Vo are courting.

James Syto, 59, is an independent voter in Santa Ana. Syto said he works 16-hour days as a caregiver. He earns too much to qualify for Medi-Cal, but not enough to be able to comfortably afford his health care premiums and rent. He makes weekly visits to a food pantry in Santa Ana to supplement groceries for his family. When he votes in November, food prices and access to health care will be on his mind.

“Medi-Cal and groceries in the market: That’s the main problem,” Syto said.

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Vo, following a familiar Republican playbook, has painted his opponent as a socialist. Vo points to Tran’s vote against a House resolution that condemned “socialism in all forms” on Sept. 1. Tran defended his decision by saying that Republicans rejected his proposal to amend the bill to include language specifically denouncing the Communist government in Vietnam, according to a press release.

The labels of socialist or Communist have particular emotional weight for some older Vietnamese immigrants, who fled North Vietnamese Communist forces decades ago.

“We remember that because that’s our pain. That’s our historic pain,” said Brandon Bui, 54, a Garden Grove resident who, on a recent Saturday, came to a neighborhood park where Vo was hosting a campaign event.

Bui said that he associates the Democratic Party with socialism, especially as candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America appear on the November ballot.

“They’ve got socialists running. They could do something to stop that. Why wouldn’t they?” Bui said, referring to the Democratic Party.

Of course, Tran also has his supporters in the Vietnamese community. Cai Le, 70, joined a volunteer canvass just a couple of miles away from Vo’s campaign event in Garden Grove. She was part of a small group of Vietnamese-speaking volunteers specifically targeting members of her community.

“I want the government to take care of poor people,” Le said.

Tran has not only received criticism from the right. Among some younger, progressive voters, Tran’s record on immigration has been disappointing, said Tracy La, the executive director of VietRISE, a nonprofit advocating for Vietnamese and other immigrant communities in Orange County.

Last year, Tran voted for the Laken-Riley Act, which mandated detentions for certain immigrants arrested or charged with certain crimes. Opponents of the measure argue that it violates migrants’ due process rights, since they could be detained, even if they are never convicted of a crime.

“It’s especially frustrating because both these candidates are campaigning on the immigrant story yet again,” La said. “But they’re not using it to connect with the realities of what their constituents are facing.”

The majority-minority district’s population is 39% Asian and 35% Latino. During the summer of 2025, arrests by ICE increased sevenfold in the agency’s “area of responsibility” in Southern California, which includes Orange County, according to data provided by ICE in response to the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by Capital & Main.

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Tran is approaching Election Day with several advantages over his opponent. Prop. 50 redrew his district, making it about five percentage points more Democratic.

What’s more, a majority of U.S. adults disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, the war in Iran and the cost of living, according to a late September poll from the Associated Press-NORC. Trump’s approval rating stands at 37%, per an average of national polls.

Despite the political tailwinds for Tran, the seat is still not a safe one for the incumbent, according to the Cook Political Report. This race is a bellwether for Democratic candidates’ prospects nationwide, said Steve Barkan, a Democratic political consultant.

“If the Democrats don’t win this, then I don’t think there’s much of a chance that they would take back the House,” Barkan said.

Reia Li is a California Local News Fellow.

Copyright 2026 Capital & Main.