Derek Tran Leads Rep. Michelle Steel by 500 Votes for 45th District House Seat

Attorney Derek Tran (D) slightly improved his narrow lead on Friday against Congresswoman Michelle Steel (R-CA) in the 45th Congressional District Race, with him now up 157,075 votes to 156,556 votes in a race still officially too close to call.

In this year’s 45th Congressional District race, which covers parts of both Orange County and Los Angeles County, Tran took on the incumbent Steel. While Steel was up in May in polls, by July it was a 47%-47% tie. Tran, aided by targeting Asian communities in the District and Vice President Kamala Harris’ goodwill going down ballot, was soon up, with him being two points ahead in September. However, that began to change last month when Tran went from scandal to scandal, including lying about being able to speak fluent Vietnamese, false claims about his military record, and then the biggest roadblock so far, his legal career – such as representing a rapist for profit and defending someone who had put up a noose in his office.

Tran, fueled by money coming in from the national party, drastically increased ads in response. In mid-October, a new poll found that Steel was four points ahead 45% to 41%. This only caused them to break out more last minute ads. However, that flurry of activity has brought to light some of Tran’s more questionable claims, with one including his traffic commission attendance. With Tran’s 60% commission attendance exposed and compared heavily to Steel’s 99% voting attendance in Congress, the Tran team latched to the only major allegation to rise since – one that dated back to her time as an Orange County Commissioner. Desperate, Tran tried a last minute gambit alleging that she gave a senior meal program contract to a printing company she used in order to regain the majority vote.

Early on, results after election day showed that Steel had all but won. On the day after election day, with 66% of the vote in, she was over 10,000 votes ahead, with 123,361 compared to Tran’s 113,225. However, this swiftly changed. As more votes were counted, Steel’s lead progressively narrowed. Her all but called race soon turned out to be the closest race in the entire nation. Last week, updated voting results from the state showed her to be only 236 votes ahead with 93% of the vote in. In total, this is 152,021 votes to 151,785 votes, with it all but being a tie percentage-wise.

The closeness of the race has even led to some accusations by members of Congress. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-GA) posted on X this week that “The Democrats are stealing a House seat right out from under us in CA. We barely control the House and will have a 1 seat majority in January when Trump takes office while we fill 3 seats through special elections. We have to stop election rigging, this is a continuing battle.”

However, new results this week had Tran go slightly ahead of Steel as the final votes were counted in the District. And on Friday, Tran’s lead moved up to 519 votes with 98% of the vote counted. While Steel still has a chance to regain the lead, it is looking increasingly likely that Tran could eke out a victory. But it is also highly likely that there will be a recount in the District, making the question of who won the race possibly go down to the wire on vote certification day on December 3rd.

“At this point, yeah, we’ll get a recount,” explained James Garcia, a pollster who works in Orange County and San Diego County, to the Globe on Friday. “We knew it would be close, but everyone had Steel as having an edge because of how Orange County was this year. Asian-American voters were crucial for Tran, and it appears that strategy worked. But right now, neither side has conceded or announced that they won. We’ll see what happens.

“Tran is on track for a narrow win, but we also don’t know these last ballots, and a recount could still shake things up. What Green and others said don’t have much bearing at this point. It’s a simple count. But yeah, for Steel, she should be looking into asking for a recount at this point.”

Neither candidate has reacted to the new vote total as of Friday night.