It took 22 days. Twenty-two days of staring at spreadsheets, refreshing the California Secretary of State’s website, and watching the lead flip by a handful of votes. If you followed the derek tran election results in real-time, you know it wasn't just a race; it was a slow-motion car crash for the Republican establishment in Orange County.
Honestly, on election night, Derek Tran looked like a long shot. Incumbent Michelle Steel was up by more than 11,000 votes. In most worlds, that's a wrap. But California’s 45th District—a weird, purple slice of land covering parts of Los Angeles and Orange County—doesn't play by the usual rules.
The final tally? Tran ended up with 158,264 votes. Steel pulled 157,611.
That is a difference of just 653 votes. Out of over 315,000 cast. Basically, if a few apartment complexes had stayed home, we’d be looking at a completely different outcome.
The Comeback That Left Everyone Stunned
Most people don't realize how deep the hole was for Tran early on. Steel, a seasoned Republican incumbent with a massive $10.7 million war chest, had the early advantage. She’s Korean American and has deep roots in the community. Tran, an Army veteran and consumer rights attorney, was the son of Vietnamese refugees. He was trying to do something no one had done in this specific configuration of the district: flip it blue.
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As the mail-in ballots started trickling in over the weeks following November 5, that 11,000-vote lead didn't just shrink—it evaporated.
By mid-November, the lead was down to 102 votes. Then 36 votes. It was agonizingly close. You’ve got to imagine the stress in those campaign offices. One day you're up, the next day you're down by the equivalent of a high school classroom.
Why the 45th District Flipped
The 45th is a "majority-minority" district. About one-third of the voters are Asian American. Vietnamese Americans alone make up about 16% of the electorate, concentrated in places like Little Saigon, Westminster, and Garden Grove.
Tran leaned hard into his identity. He spoke about his parents fleeing with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It resonated. While Steel tried to paint him as too "far-left," Tran focused on local kitchen-table issues like healthcare costs and worker rights.
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Interestingly, Joe Biden actually won this district by about 6% back in 2020. Steel was one of those rare "survivors"—Republicans holding onto seats in territory that usually trends toward Democrats. But in 2024, the math finally caught up with her.
Breaking Down the Numbers
If you look at where the votes came from, it’s a tale of two counties.
In the Los Angeles County portion of the district, Tran absolutely dominated. He took about 56% of the vote there. Orange County was much tighter, with Steel actually maintaining a slight edge (around 50.6% to 49.3%). But the LA turnout was just enough to push Tran over the finish line.
Steel eventually conceded on November 27. She posted on X (formerly Twitter) that "everything is God's will" and that her journey in Congress was ending. It was a remarkably quiet end to a race that had been characterized by some pretty nasty attack ads, including debates over Tran's fluency in Vietnamese and his past work as an attorney.
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What This Means for the 119th Congress
Tran’s victory was a rare bright spot for Democrats in an election cycle where Republicans took control of the House, the Senate, and the White House.
Even with Tran’s win, the GOP kept a slim majority in the House. But 653 votes—that's the margin that kept the majority from being even wider. It proves that every single door knocked and every "get out the vote" text actually mattered here.
Tran is now the third Vietnamese American ever elected to Congress and the very first to represent California. That’s a huge deal for representation in Little Saigon.
Actionable Insights from the Race
If you’re looking at these results and wondering what the takeaway is for future elections, here are a few points to consider:
- Mail-in ballots change the timeline: In California, "Election Day" is really just the beginning of a three-week counting process. Don't trust the early numbers in tight races.
- Identity politics is nuanced: Steel is Korean American; Tran is Vietnamese American. In a district with a massive AAPI population, both candidates had to fight for specific ethnic enclaves rather than treating the "Asian vote" as a monolith.
- Ground game is king: When a race is decided by 0.2%, the candidate who physically gets people to the polls wins. Tran's campaign focused heavily on grassroots outreach in Westminster and Garden Grove.
If you want to keep tabs on how Tran is voting or what he's doing for the 45th district now that he's in D.C., you should follow the official House Clerk's roll call or check his office's updates on the 119th Congress's legislative calendar. Monitoring these shifts in purple districts is the best way to predict which way the wind will blow in the next midterm cycle.