The latest federal election quarterly filing deadline just passed, which means we have an update on how the candidates for Congressional District 45 are faring. The results are probably unsurprising: incumbent Rep. Derek Tran is light years ahead of all the other candidates in fundraising. Tran has nearly $2 million in cash on hand compared to Chi Charlie Nguyen’s quarter of a million and Amy Phan West’s approximately $11,000.
Technically, there are a few other candidates at various stages of filing to participate in the race, including former Cerritos mayor Chuong Vo, former Democratic congressional primary candidate Brian Forde, and Republican Mark Leonard. But only Tran, Nguyen, and Phan West actually reported raising money in their October quarterly filings (as far as I can tell), so I’m focusing on these three in this blog post.
There’s also one very new Republican challenger in the race: Tom Vo. Tom Vo filed to form his campaign committee just a few days ago, so he hasn’t reported raising anything yet. But there’s already some … interesting information about his treasurer, so I included it below since this post focuses on campaign finance.
Derek Tran
Rep. Derek Tran’s haul for the quarter is probably the least surprising out of the candidates in the Congressional District 45 race. Overall, Tran raised $1,072,853 and spent $293,062. He started the quarter with over $1.1 million, so that leaves him with close to $2 million in cash on hand.
Tran is a “frontliner,” so he’s got donations from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, leadership PACs, and other Democratic-aligned PACs. He also received significant donations from some labor allies, environmental conservationist groups, JStreetPAC, and a few local Democratic clubs. But a majority of his donations still come from individual people. Many of them are attorneys or retirees who “max out” (donate the maximum amount possible per election: $3,500).
Other mildly interesting highlights from Tran’s filings this past quarter, in no particular order:
- National Association of Realtors PAC – $1,000
- The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC – $2,500
- L3Harris Technologies Inc. PAC (L3Harris Tech has a new MOU with the Israeli Air Force and has been a contractor for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol) – $1,000
- Coinbase Inc. Innovation PAC (Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange) – $500
- Google LLC NetPAC – $1,000
- Tony Lam, former Westminster City Council member – $248
- Allyson Damikolas, Tustin Unified School District Trustee – $150
- Libby Frolichman, Democratic Party of Orange County District 5 Vice Chair – $200
- Hieu Nguyen, nonprofit consultant and former Viet Rainbow of Orange County co-chair – $300
- Julie Hill, of Newport Beach (potentially local philanthropist Julie Hill) – $1,000
- Gena Reed, of Corona del Mar (potentially local philanthropist Gena Reed) – $1,000
- David Wehner, Chief Strategy Officer of Meta – $3,300
- Mehdi Alhassani, Manager at Palantir Technologies – $1,000
- Justin Oswald, Congressional Lead at OpenAI – $500
- Edward An, Senior Policy Manager at Google – $500
- Marissa Roy, candidate for LA City Attorney – $500
- Hilda Solis, LA County Supervisor – $500
Overall, Tran’s filings aren’t too different from those of other “frontliners,” like Reps. Min and Whitesides. I didn’t realize until recently that Tran is a tech bro favorite, but I guess these Silicon Valley people like him enough to donate to his campaign.
Amy Phan West
According to Amy Phan West’s filings, she only received about $11,000 in donations this past quarter. Here are the few from the more obviously politically-involved people:
- Tony Bui, former Westminster City Planning Commissioner – $200
- Ali Navid, Chief of Staff for Assemblymember Phillip Chen – $500
- Rodney Stewart, “retired” in Brea (potentially Brea Mayor Rodney “Blair” Stewart, endorsed by Phillip Chen) – $700
- Mark D. Schaftlein, founder of Capital Consultants and CEO of Conservative Broadcast Media and Journalism – $200
It seems some of the Phillip Chen crowd is fond of Phan West. Phillip Chen’s office recently gave her a certificate, too.
Despite trying to livestream from the dais, Phan West doesn’t appear to be as skilled in raking in online donations as her fellow councilmember Nam Quan Nguyen (who solicits non-campaign donations during his personal morning and afternoon livestreams).
Chi Charlie Nguyen
Derek Tran and Amy Phan West’s filings seem pretty expected given that one is a sitting member of Congress and the other is a 24/7 MAGA trainwreck who seems to own a dozen Stanley mugs in various shades of beige. For a few days, I wasn’t sure about what Chi Charlie Nguyen’s filings looked like. That’s because Nguyen’s filings were missing from the FEC site until October 24. Nguyen (listed as treasurer) signed the filings on October 15 (the quarterly deadline). However, they were filed on October 24.
Nguyen supposedly had a big fundraiser in San Jose on September 14, so I spent the last week or so wondering where all that money went. I asked a few friends of mine who have worked on top target congressional races, and they agreed with me that there’s no good reason for these filings to have appeared so late (caveat: they weren’t finance staffers). One of them offered a possible explanation for the filings appearing late: Nguyen may have physically mailed his filings. I wouldn’t put it past the old-school mayor to physically mail in his filings.
To give the man some credit, between Nguyen and Tran, a larger share of Nguyen’s filings seem to be from individual people in the district. But it’s mostly because Nguyen doesn’t really have many other kinds of campaign donations. For instance, Nguyen doesn’t have contributions from any trade associations or unions. He doesn’t even have an online donation page (at least, that I can find) for random supporters from across the country to donate to.
Chi Charlie Nguyen raised a total of $250,690 this quarter. Some highlights from Nguyen’s filings:
- Wen Pham, sales manager at Teletron (a company that former Garden Grove City Councilmember Phat Bui has been loudly protesting for the last few months, but that’s a whole saga for another day) – $3,500
- Dylan Hoang, presumably the owner (“Businessman”) of new-ish coffee shop Astra Bean in Westminster – $3,500
- Kevin Do, of Do Builder & Design (real estate developer) – $3,500
- Tam Lecong, CEO of Vietlink Media Group – $1,250
- Kimberly Ho, former Westminster City Councilmember – $500
It seems Kimberly Ho might now be on decent terms with Chi Charlie Nguyen despite their rocky history. Or maybe she just doesn’t like the other options in the race. And before anyone asks, it’s definitely former councilmember Kimberly Ho. The address in the filings matches the address shared in a Vietnamese newspaper article from her 2024 supervisor run.
Another curious line item was a $3,500 contribution from a Mark Nguyen, who is reported in these filings as “IT Staff” for the County of Orange. Westminster Councilmember Mark Nguyen is also a tech guy of some kind for the county. He’s a software engineer. His initial filings in 2024 (like his 497 form reporting his loan to his campaign committee) listed him as an “engineer” for the County of Orange. Chi Charlie Nguyen referred to Mark Nguyen as an “IT Manager” and Mark’s own campaign materials advertised him as “IT Manager, County of Orange” in 2024.
According to Transparent California, there’s only ever been one Mark Nguyen – a “Mark T. Nguyen” – at the County who has moved through a few job titles: Senior IT Application Developer from 2011 to 2016, Administrative Manager from 2017 to 2022, and, now, Technology Services Administrator since 2023.
The thing is, Councilmember Mark Nguyen has never listed his middle initial on any single filing that I’ve looked at. However, Councilmember Mark Nguyen disclosed in his FPPC Form 700 that he earns rental income. That property’s County Assessor parcel number belongs to an address associated with a “Mark Tuan Nguyen.” Additionally, there appears to be a “Mark T. Nguyen” in Westminster associated with a County email address and who lives at a physical address where Google Street View images from 2022 show Mark Nguyen and Chi Charlie Nguyen campaign signs (sorry for a lack of links – trying to avoid doxxing the man!)
There’s also a “Mark Su Nguyen” in Chi Charlie Nguyen’s filings, but Mark S. Nguyen is listed as “retired.” I think Councilmember Mark Nguyen is a little too young to be retired.
It wouldn’t be weird if Councilmember Mark Nguyen donated to Chi Charlie Nguyen’s congressional campaign. What is weird is that the FEC filings list the reported address of whichever Mark Nguyen donated to Chi Charlie Nguyen as being in Murrieta, which is very much not in Westminster.
Maybe it’s just a paperwork error. Maybe the Mark T. Nguyen in Westminster who is also IT staff for the County of Orange is a totally different guy who likes Councilmember Mark Nguyen, and that guy recently moved to Murrieta and donated to Chi Charlie Nguyen. Maybe Councilmember Mark Nguyen used to live in Murrieta a long time ago and just forgot to update his billing address on one account. Or maybe there are actually two Mark T. Nguyens who work for the County of Orange in IT-related positions.
I don’t necessarily think there’s anything nefarious going on. I’m just pointing out an interesting discrepancy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the result of some silly clerical mix-up.
Tom Vo
As I started writing this blog post a few days ago, I got a notification from the CA Target Bot Twitter account alerting me to a new filing in the race by some guy named Tom Vo (Thomas Ky-Phong Vo). His website isn’t set up yet, so I’m not sure which Tom Vo out of the many around the area he could be. But one piece of information that is clear on his filings stands out: his treasurer.
Tom Vo’s treasurer is Thomas Datwyler, who is the campaign treasurer for Republicans Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Mike Lee, among others.
As a political campaign finance operative, Datwyler has been accused of racking up tons of campaign finance violations over numerous campaigns. A report from Accountable.US notes that Datwyler is the treasurer of Tulsi Gabbard’s nonprofits, and he was campaign treasurer for Rep. Andy Ogles, who was investigated for potential campaign finance violations. Plus, Datwyler is the treasurer for the Make America Health Again PAC, founded by RFK Jr. staffers. The Accountable.US report also mentions that Datwyler was involved in former Rep. George Santos’ campaign and accused of wire fraud. Essentially, Datwyler is in deep, and he’s in deep in a pretty bad way.
We’ll only know more in the coming weeks and months, but Vern’s 2026 prediction is shaping up to be more and more likely: Derek Tran might have a clear shot at re-election even without the Prop. 50 map, thanks to Amy Phan West being her lovely self and Chi Charlie Nguyen only talking to Vietnamese media (he doesn’t even have a website). But hey, who knows? Perhaps either one of the two Vos in the race — former Cerritos mayor Chuong Vo or this Tom Vo guy, with his troublesome treasurer — will be the one to save OCGOP’s chances in the 45th.
You’re an incel soyboy libtard sitting behind a computer. Maga Trump 2028
Good news Perverto, you can say that to me in person! No computer. Where are you gonna be tomorrow?