Your guide to California’s 45th Congressional District race: Steel vs. Tran

Republican Rep. Michelle Steel is campaigning for a third term in her race against Derek Tran to represent California’s 45th Congressional District.

It is a pivotal California race that could determine control of the House of Representatives in 2025.

Democrats hold a 5-percentage-point voter registration advantage in the plurality-Asian district, but Republicans have turned out in high numbers in previous elections to push their candidates over the top.

Steel, 69, was born in Seoul and raised in South Korea, Japan and the United States.

She’s had a long-standing career in GOP politics, serving on the state Board of Equalization for eight years before being elected as an Orange County supervisor in 2014. She won a seat in Congress in 2020, becoming one of the first three Korean American women elected to the House.

In Congress, Steel sponsored a bill known as the Deterrent Act, which would expand oversight and disclosure requirements related to foreign money and influence in higher education. She also sponsored the Hospital and ASC Price Transparency Act, which would require hospitals to publish the prices of at least 300 services in a way that’s easy for consumers to find.

She is married to Shawn Steel, former chairman of the California Republican Party.

Tran, 43, is a lawyer and a workers’ rights advocate. He grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and in 2012 moved to Orange County, where he and his wife opened an Anaheim pharmacy. He serves on the board of the Consumer Attorneys Assn. of California and as a traffic commissioner for the city of Orange.

The Democrat, who’s making his first run for elected office, said his background as the son of Vietnamese refugees and as an Army veteran makes him a good fit for the district, which has the largest population of people of Vietnamese descent outside Vietnam.

Tran’s legislative priorities include protecting funding for Planned Parenthood and access to healthcare including birth control and cancer screenings. He supports protecting Social Security and Medicare.

California’s 45th Congressional District is a C-shaped district that contains parts of Orange County including Little Saigon, the city of Brea in the north and Fountain Valley in the south, and the Los Angeles County city of Artesia in the west.

Steel said she supports the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade, ending federal abortion rights and leaving abortion laws up to the states. She opposes abortion with exceptions in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the woman.

Steel said does not support a federal ban on abortion.

Three years ago, Steel co-sponsored the Life at Conception Act, which would declare that human life begins at the moment of fertilization. However, she rescinded her support because the bill could have imposed federal restrictions on in vitro fertilization. Steel used IVF to start her family, and said she is a supporter of fertility treatments. She has since co-sponsored bipartisan legislation that would require private health insurance plans to cover IVF treatments.

Tran said that if elected, he would vote to codify the federal right to an abortion. He also supports fertility treatments.

He said that as a father to a young girl, he believes that “every woman has the fundamental right to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions.”

Tran has criticized Steel as being too “extreme” for Orange County, pointing to her questioning of mask mandates after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and to her initial decision to co-sponsor the antiabortion bill in Congress.

Steel said she has continuously focused on “lowering taxes for hardworking families.” She has previously attributed rising costs in California to “high-tax, anti-small-business policies” in the Democratic-led state Legislature.

In Congress, Steel has supported legislation to cut taxes and sponsored the Permanent Tax Cuts for American Families Act of 2023, which would have permanently increased the standard deduction for taxpayers who don’t itemize their expenses.

As a child of immigrants, Tran said, he understood the struggles of working-class families who are stretching their dollars to make ends meet.

He vowed to hold corporations accountable for price gouging. He also supports reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil in an effort to bring down energy prices, as well as increasing federal funding for affordable-housing initiatives.

Steel criticized the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of border security. In Congress, she has voted to continue construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, improve security technology and bolster the presence of Border Patrol agents.

She said she opposes family separations and supports DACA recipients — immigrants who were brought to the U.S. without authorization as children — as long as they have no criminal record.

Tran said he’d support an immigration reform plan that invests in security technology and improves border personnel training. At the same time, he wants a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are here illegally but contributing to California’s economy.