Tran Takes Lead Over Steel For First Time In District 45 Race

SANTA ANA, CA — Republican Rep. Michelle Steel lost her lead to challenger Derek Tran in her bid for reelection in the 45th Congressional District Saturday.

The race is still too close to call and the margin razor-thin, with Tran holding a 36-vote lead, according to the California Secretary of State. It's not immediately clear how many votes remain to be counted, nor which neighborhoods the votes come from. The Associated Press estimates that 94 percent of the district's votes have been tallied as of Sunday morning.

Steel, R-Seal Beach, took the lead on election night, and at one point, Tran trailed her by more than 11,000 votes. However, the votes tallied since then have heavily favored Tran, a consumer rights attorney and pharmacy owner.

The district, which includes Los Angeles' County's Cerritos, Lakewood and Hawaiian Gardens and Artesia, mainly sits in Orange County, covering Garden Grove, Westminster, Buena Park, Fountain Valley, Cypress, Los Alamitos, Rossmoor, Brea and La Palma. It's home to Little Saigon, and a Tran victory would give the region it's first representative of Vietnamese descent.

So far, Tran has a strong lead in the Los Angeles County cities — 18,813 votes to Steel's 14,625 as of Friday. Steel has a lead in the Orange County cities — 138,320 votes to Tran's 134,168, but as of Saturday, it wasn't enough to overcome Tran's strength in Los Angeles County.

The weekend count involved only previously unprocessed ballots in Orange County.

As of Sunday morning, Steel had 152,945 votes, while Tran had 152,981, putting both candidates at 50 percent of the overall vote.