Tyler Diep Lost City Council Race - A Shocker

With little more than four thousand ballots left,  the incumbent Tyler Diep (Diep Mien Truong)  is trailing Diana Carey by 650 votes. The chances for him to pull out a last minute miracle is slim since his Vietnamese-American votes are being diluted with Charlie Nguyen and Khai Dao. In the last 5 days after the election, he hardly gains any ground against Carey. If the trend holds, his lost would be an out of this world shocker for he is an incumbent with a loaded campaign chest of $150,000.   LSI could not remember when a last time an incumbent city council lost in Westminster.   But on the other, Tyler Diep probably knew he is not popular already when earlier this year he dropped out of the state assembly race in a district where Asian-Americans make up a strong voting bloc.  This unexpected event then begs the question  whether he would be appointed by the city council to replace the seat left open by Tri Ta as he becomes the newly-elected mayor.  Tri Ta owed his mayoral victory to the endorsement and support of the popular ex-Mayor Rice.  She went out of her way to not support Tyler Diep. Just a pont of reference, the Vietnamese-American community in OC never really cares for Tyler Diep.  He is deemed to be controversial and arrogant, especially with the leaks on how he abused his seat to get special treatments.    It did not help that he was an underling of Van Tran, an ex-assemblyman who lost his congressional bid to Loretta Sanchez in 2008 in a landslide. After Tran's defeat,  his "Gang of Seven"  lost their political leverage and saw their power and influence dwindle further in Little Saigon  due to infighting.   Andy Quach and Tyler Diep Truong denounced against each other publicly as they fought to protect their consulting businesses.   Like most small cities, the city council job is a part time position.  They are allowed to operate consulting operation  to help business owners getting permits and other paperwork applications.  Ta Duc Tri and Tyler Diep are still friends but they know that they will have to leverage their political capital wisely are else it will hurt both. CITY OF WESTMINSTER Member, City Council

Number To Vote For: 2

Completed Precincts: 57 of 57

	Vote Count	Percentage
SERGIO CONTRERAS	10,407	26.3%
DIANA CAREY	8,128	20.5%
TYLER DIEP	7,478	18.9%
CHARLIE NGUYEN MANH CHI	6,446	16.3%
HELENA RUTKOWSKI	2,690	6.8%
AL P. KRIPPNER	2,273	5.7%
KHAI DAO	2,196	5.5%