Election results Thursday evening showed Republican Congresswoman Michelle Steel held a narrow lead at just 236 votes over her opponent, Democratic challenger Derek Tran.
The race for the 45th Congressional District seat is one of the tightest U.S. House races in the country – and one of the most closely watched.
The district, which encompasses Little Saigon, stretches from parts of Los Angeles County into Orange County.
It includes Cerritos, Artesia, Hawaiian Gardens, Los Alamitos, La Palma, Placentia, parts of Lakewood, Fullerton, Yorba Linda and Brea, while dipping through Cypress and Buena Park and into Westminster and Garden Grove.
Steel, a former Orange County supervisor, was first elected to congress in 2020 during the height of the pandemic after leading the supervisors through the early days of the pandemic amidst questions over how they were spending their money.
Tran, a labor attorney, has never held elected office before.
Thursday’s results come two days after Republican Scott Baugh conceded to California State Senator Dave Min for the 47th Congressional District, which spans coastal Orange County.
[Read: Dave Min Wins OC’s Coastal Congressional Seat]
As of Thursday evening, the race between Steel and Tran was just one out of eight races the Associated Press hasn’t called in the 435 separate elections for the U.S. House of Representatives across the country.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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