Rep. Derek Tran jumped out to an initial large lead over Republican Chuong Vo on Tuesday night in the 45th Congressional District race, setting an early marker in a contest that could still shift as more votes are counted. The first returns came from the California secretary of state’s office.
The early edge matters because Tran is finishing his first term in Congress and the district he represents stretches across Cerritos, Buena Park, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove and Westminster, including Orange County’s Little Saigon. That makes the lead more than a single-night snapshot; it is the first reading of a race centered on a district that links communities in Los Angeles County and Orange County.
Tran’s advantage also comes in a district where the registration balance is not neatly tilted toward one side. Democrats account for 38.77% of registered voters, or 175,995 people, while Republicans make up 30.08%, or 136,536, and no party preference voters account for 25.29%, or 114,816. In other words, an early lead is real, but it is being built inside a district where a large share of the electorate does not belong to either major party.
The race has also been shaped by personal histories that mirror the district itself. Both Tran and Vo are children of Vietnamese refugees, and both have leaned on those stories as they seek to connect with voters in Little Saigon, home to the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. Vo, a former police officer who served for nearly three decades, came to the U.S. from Vietnam as a refugee with his parents. Tran was born and raised in Los Angeles County, and his father’s path from Vietnam, after the fall of Saigon, ended in tragedy before the family later rebuilt its life in the U.S.
For now, the key fact is simple: Tran started ahead, and that lead was large enough to define the night. Whether it holds will depend on the votes still to be counted, but the first returns gave him the kind of opening that can shape the rest of the race.
