Tran Uses Last Minute $1.2 Million Senior Meal Allegations Against Steel

45th Congressional District candidate and Attorney Derek Tran (D) used last minute allegations from an NPR report saying that his opponent, Congresswoman Michelle Steel (R-CA), had given a $1.2 million taxpayer-funded senior meal program contract in 2020 to a printing company she used as a last ditch effort to win the race over the weekend, earning a sharp rebuke from the Steel campaign.

In this year’s 45th Congressional District race, 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.

According to the allegations, she had “Directed a $1.2 million taxpayer-funded contract to a marketing and printing company that she was using at the time for her congressional election campaign mailers.” It was also claimed that many of the restaurants the company contracted with had used the printing business, making meal costs be on average $24 instead of the usual $7-$11 per meal.

Last minute allegations by Tran

Tran jumped on the allegations over the weekend, saying that “Michelle Steel funneled 1.2 million dollars meant for feeding needy seniors to her campaign political mail handler. It’s not good, and people are ready for a change. I absolutely want an investigation.”

During this time, Tran was also at events with Governor Gavin Newsom, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Attorney General Rob Bonta. The eleventh hour allegations being used by the campaign were just part of the huge weekend blitz Tran planned for the district.

However, Steel’s team responded on Monday, with campaign spokesman Lance Trover saying that “Derek Tran is a liar and a sleazy trial attorney who enriched himself by working for sexual predators, filing frivolous lawsuits, and blaming the women. So it’s no surprise that in a pathetic last-minute ploy, he is lying about Michelle’s program that provided 50,000 meals to Orange County senior citizens and supported restaurants during COVID.”

According to pollsters, the senior meal allegations have done very little to harm Steel.

“I bet Tran would have loved to have known about these allegations a few weeks ago,” said James, a pollster who works in Orange County and San Diego County, to the Globe on Monday. “But they had no time to roll it out for ads. And even then, they are just allegations. The push on Tran’s clients was far more damaging to Tran than this to Steel. You can justify the meal plans even if the allegations are true. You can’t justify things Tran has done, and voters seem to know that.

“Poll-wise, it’s neck to neck. A few polls give Steel the advantage, a few give Tran the advantage. They’re both desperate for an edge, but Tran did not get it through this allegation. In fact, it might have even hurt him, as a lot of those seniors were happy to get those meals.”

The 45th District is expected to be one of the closest congressional races in the nation.