The Last Republican Standing in Orange County

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Hope you all enjoy the holiday - we’ll see you after Christmas! Now let’s get to it…

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE… Congresswoman Young Kim, who comfortably won re-election to her CA-40 District seat by ten points last month, is officially the last federal Republican standing in Orange County.

After Republican Rep. Michelle Steel narrowly lost her bid for re-election in CA-45 to Derek Tran and Democrats clung on to tight contests in the coastal CA-47 and CA-49 districts, Democrats now hold five of the six congressional districts that at least partially touch Orange County.

Why stop there? According to a new memo from House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ big-spending outside campaign group, Kim’s CA-40 District is one of 29 Republican-held seats in their crosshairs for the 2026 midterms.

• Other California GOP-held seats they are targeting include Reps. Kevin Kiley (CA-03), David Valadao (CA-22), and Ken Calvert (CA-41).

It may seem way too early to start focusing on 2026, but not if you’re a potential candidate planning to run for office in one of the most high-profile battleground races in the country. The behind-the-scenes water-testing, message-polling, endorsement-securing, and fundraising starts, well, NOW, which is exactly what House Majority PAC is focusing on.

• “Headed into the midterms with lessons learned from 2024, HMP is today launching a 2026 Recruitment Fund – which will allow us to recruit and prepare potential candidates earlier than ever,” the PAC wrote in their memo.

• Read between the lines: they’re already looking for a strong candidate to challenge Kim in 2026.

🐴 Hold your horses, though. Kim is a prolific fundraiser. She raised nearly $9 million in 2024 while her Democrat opponent Joseph Kerr only raised $1.5 million, a massive money advantage that reinforces why the House Majority PAC is so interested in recruiting a strong (read: well-funded) candidate to take her on in 2026.

• Outside Democrat groups, meanwhile, only spent a measly $188,000 boosting Kerr, suggesting they weren’t too confident in his chances.

• Compare that to CA-45, where outside groups spent nearly $4.5 million boosting Democrat Derek Tran, or CA-47, where Democrat groups spent $4.4 million supporting Democrat Dave Min. They won both races.

Kim also has a structural advantage, as her CA-40 district seat is the most reliably Republican in the entire county, at least on paper. Republicans hold a five-point edge in voter registration in her eastern Orange County district (see the map below), which makes it naturally tough terrain for Democrats to break through.

• Compare those numbers to CA-47, where the parties are tied in voter registration, CA-45 (Democrats hold a +5 edge), or CA-49 (Democrats hold a +2 advantage.)

That doesn’t mean Kim couldn’t lose under the right circumstances. If 2026 is a “blue wave” backlash against Republicans, and the Democrats recruit a strong candidate who can match her fundraising and attract outside-spending, her seat could very much be in jeopardy.

But in the meantime, Kim is the last Republican standing in Orange County for a reason.

SPEAKING OF STEEL… Michelle Steel delivered her last speech on the floor of the House this week, which you can watch here. She recapped her work helping to keep Orange County beaches safe and clean and fighting the creeping influence of communist China. The new Congress will be sworn in on January 3.

👋 But is it really goodbye? Immediately after her loss last month, Steel quietly filed her “Statement of Candidacy” paperwork to run for CA-45 again in 2026. She has been publicly quiet about her plans for now, but she appears to be keeping her options open.

READ DEEPER ➡️ Politico has a new piece exploring how Democrat Derek Tran “blew up the Democratic campaign playbook” and was able to win over traditionally Republican Vietnamese voters in Little Saigon and unseat Michelle Steel.

THE WAIVER AND THE MANDATE Last week we discussed how the incoming Trump Administration could go to war against California on various initiatives, including pulling federal funding for the state’s disastrous high-speed rail boondoggle and killing other climate change initiatives that require federal approval, or “waivers,” to take effect (California currently has multiple waivers filed with the Biden Administration waiting for approval).

On Wednesday, the Biden Administration finally approved perhaps the most controversial waiver of them all - a vehicle emissions standard that paves the way for California’s mandated ban on the sale of all gas cars in the state by 2035.

• The “Advanced Clean Cars II” rule approved by Biden’s EPA will allow California to require that 35% of cars sold in the state in 2026 be zero-emissions, 68% in 2030, and 100% in 2035.

• Per the Clean Air Act, any state seeking stricter-than-federal regulations on emissions must first get approval by the federal government.

So that’s it, then? Hardly. Biden’s last-minute waiver approval sets up a messy legal and regulatory battle between California, Trump, and the auto industry.

Trump, who has been a vocal opponent of electric vehicle mandates, will almost certainly start the process of revoking the waiver, which could take months if not over a year of regulatory process and provoke time-consuming lawsuits from California and other parties.

There’s also the question of what automakers, who generally above all desire certainty about the future, do. The trade group representing automakers is opposed to California going rogue (“the country should have a single, national standard,” they said in a recent memo) but individual companies may think differently. From Politico:

• “The last time automakers faced uncertainty during Trump’s first term, five companies — BMW, Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and Volvo — broke away from the pack and signed a deal lasting through 2026 to follow California’s standards even if they were revoked. Stellatis, which owns American brands like Dodge and Jeep, has already agreed to support the state’s new, stricter rules through 2030.”

Then there’s pending legal action challenging the EPA’s waiver, which may result in the entire waiver being put on hold until it’s sorted out in court. Electric vehicle mandate advocates won a victory at the Supreme Court earlier this week after it refused to hear a case from oil and gas manufacturers and red states challenging the legality of EPA’s waiver (FWIW, they essentially argued that California doesn’t have the right to set what will surely become a de facto national fuel standard due to its size).

However, the Court did say it would consider one aspect of the case - whether or not they have standing to challenge the waiver in court at all - which means the case against the waiver in the courts is still breathing. From SCOTUS Blog:

• “The justices on Friday agreed to hear an appeal filed by fuel producers, who seek review of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit holding that they did not have a legal right to challenge the waiver. The court declined, however, to hear the fuel producers’ challenge to the legality of the waiver itself.”

All this is to say, Trump may not have the power to kill the waiver on day one, but California doesn’t have the ability to declare victory either. Expect the future of the waiver to be one of opening salvos in Trump’s war on California when he takes office.

OC SPECIAL ELECTION ALERT Republican State Senator Janet Nguyen successfully ran for Orange County First District Supervisor in 2024, which means her coastal Orange County 36th District state senate seat is now empty and requires a special election for a candidate to fill the last two years of her term.

The election dates, which were set last week by Governor Newsom per state law, will be on a quick timeline. The primary has been set for February 25, with a general election on April 29. Candidates have until January 2nd to file.

The Orange County GOP has already rushed to endorse Huntington Beach City Councilmember Tony Strickland for the seat:

• “Under his leadership, Huntington Beach went from a Republican minority to a 7-0 Republican City Council,” the OC GOP said in their statement. “Tony led the fight against Gavin Newsom and won on Voter ID, local control and Covid mandates. He is the fighter we need in Sacramento and the leader we need to fix California’s failures on crime, homelessness and affordability.”

Past readers will recall that Strickland has indeed been one of the fighters on the front-lines of Huntington Beach’s wars over voter ID, City Hall flag laws, housing mandates, and other hot-button issues. He also previously served in both the state Assembly and Senate in the early 2000s.

You can check out Strickland’s campaign website here.

This should be an easy hold for Republicans. Nguyen won election to the seat in 2022 with 57% of the vote. Even more encouraging, Trump won 64% of the vote in this district last month. As of now, no other Republicans have publicly announced, nor have any Democrats.

🌎 KNOW YOUR GEOGRAPHY The 36th State Senate District hugs coastal Orange County from San Clemente all the way up to Huntington Beach and Seal Beach, before jutting inward to include Fountain Valley, Westminster, Cypress, and a portion of Los Angeles County.

WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

🤷 The Orange County Republican Party sent out an email this week pushing back on several claims of voter fraud in the county circulating around locally after the November elections.

👨‍🏭 The Los Angeles Times is out with a new piece this week explaining how “Trump 2.0” could be a boon for California’s manufacturing industry.

🗳️ Former Orange County State Senator Josh Newman (D), who was defeated last month by Republican Steven Choi in the 37th Senate District, told the OC Register he is eying running again in 2026 in the neighboring 34th Senate District, which will be open.

🧑‍⚖️ Proposition 36, which was passed by California voters last month and imposes harsher penalties for multiple convictions for petty retail theft, took effect on Thursday.

🍊 The OC Board of Supervisors gave the stamp of approval for a partially state-funded $45 million project to convert an old Travel Lodge in Costa Mesa into a homeless shelter with 78 units.