Derek Tran declares victory over Michelle Steel in closely watched House race

Democrat Derek Tran declared victory over incumbent Republican Rep. Michelle Steel on Tuesday in the 45th Congressional District, even though there are still votes to be counted.

Tran held a 581-vote lead over Steel by Tuesday morning, a margin too large for her to overcome to win the seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, he said. By Tuesday afternoon, the lead expanded to 613 votes.

“Mathematically, it looks like it would be pretty hard for her to be able to take the lead and we feel confident and comfortable declaring victory,” Tran told LAist

A phone call from LAist to Steel’s spokesperson went unreturned.

The Associated Press has yet to call the race. The district straddles Orange and L.A. counties and includes the cities of Garden Grove, Cerritos, and La Brea.

Counting the votes

Early Tuesday, Tran’s campaign estimated there were 1,690 votes remain to be counted in the race. That included vote-by-mail ballots in which the signature on the ballot did not match the signature on file with the Registrar of Voters.

Each side has access to the contact information for each of those ballots and is frantically trying to contact the voters whose names show up on their list of supporters.

“We are attempting to contact them five and six times to urge them to cure their ballot,” said Orrin Evans, a spokesperson for the Tran campaign.

The remaining votes also include conditional and provisional ballots.

“Every vote should be heard,” Evans said.

Steel would need to win 68% of remaining ballots to make up her deficit, according to the statement from the Tran campaign.

Republican Rep. Michelle Steel is fighting to keep her seat from Democrat Derek Tran.

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Derek Tran for Congress; Wikimedia Commons

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'Living on pins and needles'

Tran’s victory would mean Republicans still control the House of Representatives but by a slimmer margin. Counting Tran, Democrats would hold 213 to Republicans 218. Two races have yet to be called — one in California and another in Iowa.

Steel led Tran by 4.2 percentage points the day after the election. But her lead steadily eroded as vote counting continued. Tran pulled ahead of Steel by 36 votes on Nov. 16 and has led ever since.

“It's been living on pins and needles,” Tran said Tuesday. “My faith in our democracy and how our voting system is set up has never been stronger.”

The first-time candidate said his mother is “very excited and ready for us to start the next chapter.”

Tran, a lawyer, army veteran and son of Vietnamese refugees, would become the first Vietnamese American to represent the district, which includes Little Saigon.

“I am honored to be in this position,” he said, adding he will represent his community “in a way they’ll be proud of.”

Looking ahead

“It's not just the Vietnamese community that I am going to be representing," Tran said. "It's everybody in California’s 45th District and I will do so honorably and with character.”

Tran acknowledged he’ll be a member of the minority party facing a Republican majority led by President-elect Donald Trump.

“I am ready to tackle and take on anything that’s extreme,” he said.

He also said he’d be willing to work across the aisle: “Whether it's working with an independent, a Republican, a fellow Democrat, I just want to get things done for the American people.”

“It's very clear from my constituents that they want me to focus on inflation — making sure that working families can afford the groceries,” he added.

In anticipation of a win, Tran attended freshman orientation for new members of the House of Representative in Washington, D.C. last week. He said he was presented with a whirlwind of information, and experience he said was almost like “drinking from a fire hose.”