A district in Orange County, California, is set to be one of the most competitive national races in the fight to control the House of Representatives. But the November matchup between Democrat Dave Min and Republican Scott Baugh is notable for another reason: It’s one of the few toss-up seats over which Asian American voters hold an outsize influence.
California’s 47th Congressional District, where Asian American and Pacific Islanders make up a quarter of the population, has repeatedly flipped from Democrats to Republicans over the past decade. With the electorate nearly evenly divided between both parties, candidates are actively courting the AAPI population ahead of November’s election.
The coastal Orange County district, currently represented by Democrat Katie Porter, was once a GOP bastion home to affluent, suburban white voters. In Irvine, by far the largest and most Democratic city in the district, Asians now make up 40% of the population. Min, a law professor and state senator, said that his background as a Korean American and track record fighting for Asian American issues makes him uniquely positioned to represent the community.
“We don’t have much representation in the halls of political power,” Min told NBC News. “Those of us who are Asian American end up representing not just our own districts but Asian Americans across the entire region, maybe across the entire U.S.”
Orange County, a place Ronald Reagan once described as “where the good Republicans go before they die,” has become a political battleground due to a surge in Asian and Latino immigrants over the past two decades. Four of the county’s six congressional races, including Min’s, are ranked among the most competitive in the country, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report. A UC Irvine poll from January found that wealthier Asian American and Latino residents, who comprise a majority of independent voters, could play a key role in the general…
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