So, in California’s 45th Congressional District, our friend Derek Tran has just declared victory over Michelle Steel. Who knows if or when Steel will concede? Or if they’ll want to waste their money and our patience on a recount. Michelle’s svengali hubby Shawn has been whining about “Democrat cheating” for a couple weeks now, but as the late votes come in, Derek’s lead just keeps growing – to 613 as of Tuesday the 26th, and there aren’t many ballots left to count – so let’s just put this thing out of its misery.
Bunch of observations: the “OC Red Wave” that some OC Republicans dreamed of two weeks ago (with Register enabling) has ended up with our county having FIVE DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMEMBERS OUT OF SIX – from what was previously four out of six.
The nation’s eyes have been riveted on this race, as the closest and hardest-fought Congressional race this year, AND the MOST EXPENSIVE ONE EVER. I’ll be back with more figures, but we know Elon Musk took personal interest in keeping Steel in office, blowing $1.3 million on this race alone. (Yes, we beat Elon Musk!)
Republicans have control of the House of course, but the smaller we can keep their majority, the greater the hope of “keeping our Republic” as Ben Franklin put it. And thanks to the victories of Derek as well as Dave Min (and hopefully Adam Gray up in the San Joaquin Valley) that majority will be razor-thin. (After which we hope that there are still some Republicans in Congress who believe in the Constitution and good government and will hold the line on Trump’s worst excesses.)
And just wait for the inevitable Blue Tsunami of 2026 when Americans realize what they voted for this month. Derek will be well placed to defend his seat as an incumbent, and you know who’s gonna be challenging him, right? Oh, did you miss this? Well, why else do you think Janet Nguyen has been (hilariously) playing anti-corruption warrior and laying into not only Andrew Do but Michelle Steel, who both identically abused their positions as OC Supervisors to line their and their cronies’ pockets?
Today Derek demolishes corrupt Michelle Steel, next time corrupt Janet Nguyen, that’ll be glorious. (We can only hope the Democrat establishment will have overcome their terror of Janet by then.)
*********************
There are many reasons to celebrate the victory of Derek Tran, first among them being that Derek will be a terrific Congressman! When I first interviewed him in February, two of his first priorities he mentioned to me were overturning Citizens United (a lofty but worthy goal) and fighting the corporations who are colluding to jack up prices and cause “greed-flation.” This latter was something Kamala Harris also emphasized at the beginning of her Presidential campaign – she sounded just like Derek at first! – before her advisers apparently told her to back off the populist rhetoric so’s not to scare off Wall Street and moderate Republicans. But luckily Derek didn’t have such milquetoast consultants, and although he doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed, I call him a progressive.
For those who care about such things, Little Saigon deserves a Viet-American Congressman – a decent and honest one, who shares their experience of coming over as a Boat Person. A Viet politician that their kids can look up to, not a swindler like Janet Nguyen or Andrew Do. Michelle didn’t know how to deal with that, and started claiming she was somehow “more Vietnamese than Derek” – if she meant more similar to Janet and Andrew then yeah maybe.
And of course I’ve been personally invested in Derek’s campaign – I had to resign as VP of the Anaheim Democrats Club because of my February piece (written, I thought, as a free-speaking American) extolling Derek over DPOC-endorsed Kim Nguyen-Penaloza. I think I was right, only Derek could have won that difficult race, but I’m sure that the Kim clique of the DPOC is still bitter about that, and are still trying to take it out on the Club. (Later, after he won the primary, we held a fundraiser for him and Frances Marquez, the latter of whom should have had a lot more help from the DPOC.)
Those are some reasons to be happy about Derek winning, but who are we kidding, this joint is Schadenfreude Central. And over here, we are…
Dancing on the Political Graves of Shawn & Michelle Steel!
It’s high time this poisonous couple was out of power and put to bed! Shoulda been many years ago. As a Congresswoman Michelle has been utterly mediocre by any measure, with zero accomplishments, which we can maybe be thankful for, as she and her hubby are pure MAGA Trump barnacles, as well as backward “social conservatives” right outta the 1950’s. Did you hear about how they yanked their daughter out of a fine college when she started to support gay marriage? They have long wanted to outlaw abortion – when her consultants tell her to equivocate on that she does so, but her voting record and statements speak for themselves.
Before Congress, her record as Supervisor was one of corruption – trying to give away public land to campaign donors, and shoveling millions in COVID money to cronies EXACTLY IN THE MANNER OF ANDREW DO. Corruption with a walloping side order of incompetence.
Then there is TEH STOOPID. When Michelle opens her mouth without a script, it is up to us befuddled listeners to sift through her permanently broken English to uncover the kernels of moron-notions buried within. Republican outlets nationwide have called ME racist for ridiculing how badly she speaks, but I retort: Accepting this level of English from someone who’s been in this country for 50 years, and who is married to one of the County’s most loquacious raconteurs, shows what an earlier Republican President called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
By way of illustration or reminder, a couple of Supervisor Steel’s musings, back when she was dutifully minimizing our nation’s most deadly pandemic since 1918. Here, it was no big deal her getting COVID, because she “lost few weights.”
And here, “making the case” against mask mandates, she claims the fact that we don’t make dogs wear masks is clearly…
Historians, if they’re ever able to take a break from studying the Trump Phenomenon, will puzzle over how OC voters twice sent this brain surgeon to the halls of Congress.
************************
But what REALLY makes us feel good about the Steels’ belated downfall is the unrivalled viciousness and Orwellian anti-truth of their campaigns. Against both Jay Chen two years ago and Derek Tran this year. To paraphrase an old Jewish adage, “As the dog returneth to its own vomit, so the Steels return to calling their opponents Communists.” It was maddening to hear the Steels call Navy commander Jay Chen a Chinese Communist sympathizer in ’22, when:
- Chen’s parents came from anti-Communist, China-endangered Taiwan;
- Chen served honorably in SOUTH KOREA, defending Michelle’s homeland and family from Communists in the North;
- and above all SHAWN STEEL escorted ACTUAL CHINESE COMMUNIST OFFICIALS to meet President Trump, so that they could convince him to let them do what they want with Taiwan.
That attack was also racist, as it played on Koreans’ and Viets’ prejudices against ethnic Chinese, which is what Taiwanese like Jay are. And it worked, is the sad thing. Sometimes we pray that campaigns like that won’t work, because otherwise there seems to be no justice in this world, and it’ll just happen again and again.
But as the dog returneth to its own vomit… they tried the same thing with Army veteran Derek this year – Derek whose parents had risked their lives fleeing Communist Vietnam on a makeshift boat – the original “Boat People.” THIS time Little Saigon voters reacted with disgust and outrage. So Michelle began to air endless ads of sad-looking woman “survivors” expressing outrage that attorney Tran had at some point represented some men accused of sexual assault. These ads also didn’t land quite well, with anyone who had a brain. (See EVERY SINGLE COMMENT on this Instagram video.)
Maybe the closest thing we’ll get to a concession from Michelle Steel is from today, this ridiculous Newsweek column somebody wrote for her, a column encouraging Trump to pursue a hard line with Communist China – clearly a bid to get some kinda post in the Rotting Yam’s new cabinet. I KNOW! Irony coughs up Steel blood once more, this column coming from the aged trophy wife of the man who was paid to introduce ACTUAL COMMUNIST CHINESE OFFICIALS to Trump a few short years ago.
This could go on and on but let’s not. As we dance on the political graves of Shawn and Michelle Steel, we could have a lot worse soundtrack than Huey Piano Smith & the Clowns’ “Don’t You Just Know it!”
Meanwhile the rest of the nation is going to hell, but at least we have this. And they can’t take that away from us.
Aside from one correction — NORTH Korea, not South, is Michelle Steel’s homeland, from which she and her family escaped to Japan — I’m going to add just a few things to Vern’s excellent story. My theme is: Unsung Heroes.
The DPOC was leaning heavily on the scales in this primary (as was evident in the coverage from Chez Chumley) for Kimberly Berenice (or Bernice, or forget it) Nguyen-Penaloza. It almost worked! Here are the Top Two primary results for CA-45, from which we will distill three unsung heroes — none of which are on that list!
Michelle Steel (R) 54.9% 78,022
Derek Tran (D) 15.9% 22,546
K.Nguyen-P’loza (D)15.6% 22,179
Cheyenne Hunt (D) 8.4% 11,973
Aditya Pai (D) 5.2% 7,399
Unsung Hero #1: Jay Chen
Jay is of course a sung hero, but he doesn’t get enough credit here. I don’t think that Tran beats KBNP in the primary without Jay introducing him around, campaigning hard for him both in one-to-ones and before the public at large. There is a residual affection for Jay (less in DPOC than outside of it) because he was such a smart, decent, and appealing guy when he ran here. Not knowing much about Tran, I believe that I was poised to support Cheyenne Hunt (who had a good story) before Jay wrestled me to the ground and explained that Tran could definitely win. Jay’s effective lobbying for Tran gave people a support base for opposing the somewhat feckless DPOC-inamorata KBNP; he, after all, knew the district very well. In a narrow 0.3% victory, lots of things would have been “decisive,” but other than Tran himself Jay would have been at the forefront — because taking on DPOC took guts, but it had to be done.
Unsung Hero #2: Jimmy Pham
Tran’s fellow Viet attorney Jimmy Pham had had his eyes set on CA-45, and had already donated a lot of money to his effort, but when he saw how the race was shaping up, in October 2023, he (rather amazingly) did the right thing and switched to a difficult race in AD-72. https://www.jimmyphamca.com/post/press-release-jimmy-pham-makes-strategic-switch-from-congressional-race-to-state-assembly-ad72-race and https://www.jimmyphamca.com/post/oc-register-jimmy-pham-launches-assembly-campaign-days-after-dropping-out-of-congressional-race. If Pham doesn’t make that move, KBNP beats Pham — and almost certainly loses badly to Steel. (In fact, not winning that primary was probably the best thing for her own career. No telling what Shawn Steel’s winged monkeys could have come up with about her.)
Unsung Hero #3: Shawn Steel and His Winged Monkeys
With this many Democrats in the race, three things were clear as the filing deadline approached:
(1) Michelle Steel would finish first in the primary — and by a whole lot.
(2) Democrats were going to beat themselves up badly.
(3) This meant that by running a second Republican candidate as a patsy in this race — someone who might have taken 20, 30, or even 40% of the vote from Steel (finishing second wouldn’t matter to Steel, who would still have outmatched any Republican in the primary due to Hubby’s Money and connections — Republicans could take both spots in the primary and guarantee that they would keep the seat. Someone who Democrats would hate worse than Steel — say Amy Phan West or one of the HB ghouls would have done nicely. But they didn’t do it. Why?
I suspect that it was due to the extreme lack of faith that Shawn and his advisors had in the
productcandidate that they were selling. Even if that Republican opponent had been instructed to take a fall in exchange for later consideration, they were afraid that if voters had a Republican alternative on the ballot — even if it was someone like Gracie Van Der Mark and Donald Trump personally endorsed Michelle — then they would take it. They figured that it would be easier to beat a Democrat (which if it were KBNP, sure) than even a fellow Republican who was taking a dive. That is some really profound lack of faith!So: thank you, Shawn Steel, and thank you, Winged Monkeys, for your profound lack of faith that Rep. Steel could have won even a fixed race! Your failure brings us endless joy, especially because you’ll have no chance to fix it in two years, when incoming Rep. Tran will be much better known to his constituents!
As I understand it Steele refused to concede
Checks out.
We’ll keep checking and posting the daily counts. https://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2024/11/all-eyes-on-45-derek-ahead-of-the-steels-by-102-votes-mon-11-18/
At 5 today both LA and OC are reporting new results. I hope Tran’s people knew what they were doing declaring victory at this point.
Declaring victory doesn’t matter. Won’t change anything.
It’s like all those people praying for a good result during the count – AFTER the ballots are cast. As if Baby Jesus was going to start miraculously changing ballots to answer prayers.
Well, Derek’s lead just grew from 581 to 613 (with new results out from both LA and OC) so he and his team (and myself) have not been proven fools yet…
See my update down vvvv thataway!
Correction – Jimmy Pham ran against Tri Ta for AD70 not 72.
That’s funny. You’re right of course, but apparently Jimmy himself thought it was the 72nd before correcting his own press release, as see the URL:
https://www.jimmyphamca.com/post/press-release-jimmy-pham-makes-strategic-switch-from-congressional-race-to-state-assembly-ad72-race
Thanks, Terry. I was working off of his website.
Adam Gray is now ahead of John Duarte by 105 votes. As I mentioned previously, the majority of remaining votes to count are in blue counties, so hopefully Gray will win.
Great article, btw. I had forgotten about “species discrimination”. ROFL.
Thanks Mike, and thanks for your always-valuable input.
I had to leave a lot out of this story, when it became exactly the right length. But two things:
Talking to Larry Elder on the radio, in between accusing Democrats of cheating, Shawn made sure to praise his campaign’s workers (who by the way are pissed at not being paid what they were promised) calling them “future Stephen Millers.” Yes, Stephen Miller, the creepy racist architect of Trump’s family separation policies. That’s the future Shawn Steel envisions for young Republicans in his orbit.
And did you catch where the Steels got the Register to publish a really stupid piece about “Does Derek Tran Really Speak Vietnamese as Well As He Claims?” On behalf of a candidate whose English is immeasurably worse than Derek’s Vietnamese.
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/09/06/derek-tran-says-hes-fluent-in-vietnamese-rep-michelle-steels-campaign-says-hes-not/
Sometimes we just have to laugh along with Huey Piano Smith. HA HA HA HA! HEY-OH!
You listened to Larry Elder? For me that would be worse than nails on a chalkboard. I did see the “Does Derek Tran Really Speak Vietnamese…” story but just shook my head and quickly moved on. I know that people are suppose to listen and read divergent opinions to understand how other people are thinking – but these days that is a fools errand. Pun intended. It’s all buffoonery and tripe.
I really do hope Gray wins, but I won’t hold my breath to read any media stories about how there wasn’t a red wave, etc. etc. etc. It will be glossed over. It doesn’t fit the media narrative.
No! Someone caught a clip of it and put it on Twitter LOL. I should find a link. He also couldn’t remember Stephen Miller’s last name right away (Shawn is OLD!) so at least he doesn’t go around thinking about him all day.
For those interested in following the last week or so of the count, here are two pages from the Secretary of State’s site that you’ll want to consult:
(1) https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/close-contests
This page tells you the results of “Close Contests” within state (as opposed to local) races, which is defined as having margins of no more than 2%. Only three races — CA-13, CA-45, and AD 58 —
(2) https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status
This one tells you how many of what types of ballots are out there in each county.
You can also check out some very cool and semi-informative maps of the county votes for various candidates and issues! The new champion of conservative counties appears to be: LASSEN County, taking over from Placer and then Modoc! Congratulations to Cal State Lassen’s Fightin’ Prison Guards, so named (if that were true, which it isn’t, partly because there is no CSU there) because literally half of the adults in the county work for either the two state prisons in Susanville or the one federal prison in Herlong!
The person for whom Lassen County was named was murdered under mysterious circumstances and his murderer was never found — so: just like JFK!
The Orange Lady’s Hannah Kang just reported that Michelle Steel has (in effect) just conceded the race to Derek Tran, and that both candidates have already signed up for a rematch in 2026.
They quote her as saying “Everything is God’s will and, like all journeys, this one is ended for a new one to begin.” “Obla dee, Obla dah,” she did not add.
The Steel campaign will now shift to complete and incorrigible misrepresentations of whatever votes Tran casts (or doesn’t cast) in Congress. This provides a lot of job security — volunteer, of course — for those of us who heed Benjamin Franklin’s words: When he was asked if voters in CA-45 could choose a Vietnamese Democrat to represent Little Saigon and points north, he said “What the hell are you talking about? What is California? What is Vietnam? What is Saigon? But whatever the answers are, if you’ve already done it, then you can keep it, if you do keep it. Gotta go!”