Derek Tran, a consumer rights lawyer and Army veteran, defeated Representative Michelle Steel, a Republican two-term incumbent, according to The Associated Press, flipping a battleground seat in Orange County, Calif.
The win was the second House pickup in California for Democrats in an otherwise disappointing year for the party.
While Ms. Steel had a large war chest and strong party backing in the 45th Congressional District, Mr. Tran, a first-time political candidate, won in part by attacking her shifting positions on abortion.
During her time in Congress, Ms. Steel was twice a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, a bill that amounted to a nationwide abortion ban. She later withdrew her support from the bill, but Mr. Tran seized on Ms. Steel’s earlier position to paint her as having extreme views on reproductive rights.
Mr. Tran made a concerted effort to court Vietnamese Americans in Little Saigon, a large bloc of voters who have traditionally leaned Republican and are staunchly anti-Communist. But his profile as the son of war refugees from Vietnam largely inoculated him from Ms. Steel’s attempts to frame him as a Communist sympathizer. His background also gave voters the opportunity to elect the district’s first-ever Vietnamese American representative in Congress.
Ms. Steel, a prolific fund-raiser, collected $9.4 million this campaign cycle, outpacing the $5 million raised by Mr. Tran through Oct. 16, according to campaign finance filings.
He benefited from an influx of money from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and some national star power: Former President Bill Clinton came to the district to campaign for him.
Mr. Tran’s upset victory indicated a limit to the political reach of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who issued a late endorsement for Ms. Steel in the final days of the election and blasted Mr. Tran as a “Radical Left Puppet of Communist China.”
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