Janet Nguyen Is Ahead by 1,848 Votes

With less than 27,000 provisional ballots in Orange County and perhaps 1,300 ballots in Los Angeles County,  Janet Nguyen (R) is leading Tom Umberg (D) by 1,848 votes in the California's 34th State Senate district race.

All the 4 congressional districts controlled by Republicans represent parts of Orange County fell to Democratic candidates.  However, at state level, all Republican controlled senate and assembly seats in Orange County held so far.  Tyler Diep (R) won his D72 Assembly race to replace Allen Travis (R) with easy despite 24 hit pieces against him within 5 months leading to the general election.

SD34 currently is too close to call.  Can Nguyen hold on to her seat as an incumbent?  The answer perhaps will be clearer tomorrow.

Both SD34 and AD27 have at least 20% or more Vietnamese-American registered voters.

Janet Nguyen In Another Close Race

After 8 days of counting, the California State Senate District 34 race is still up in the air.   The initial return on election day showed the incumbent Janet Nguyen (R) was 18% ahead of the challenger Tom Umberg (D).  Now, Nguyen is barely ahead by 1.32%. 


The trend is against Nguyen.  She has lost an average of 2% for the last 8 days.  With still about 15,000 to 20,000 VMB's and 29,000 provisional ballots, this race will not likely to end by Thanksgiving.  The official tally for now is  Janet Nguyen - 113,095 votes, Tom Umberg - 110,131 votes

The Rise of the Hispanic Political Power in San Jose

For 13 years, the district that has one of the highest concentrations of Hispanic residence never had a Hispanic councilmember to call their own.  District 7 of San Jose City composes of  about 48% Hispanic and 38% Asian,  and yet a Vietnamese candidate has always won in the last 4 elections.

Hispanic voters flexed their muscle in 2016 and it showed in the D8 election result.  Sylvia Arenas, a relative unknown, defeated the well known  Jimmy Nguyen who had the endorsement of  SVO and former Vice Mayor Rose Herrera.  D8 is 53% Asian and 25% Hispanic.  But the Donald Trump Effect drove extremely high turnout of Hispanic voters and helped Sylvia won the race by 97 votes.

Currently, the San Jose City Council has 4 Hispanic councilmembers and with Esparza,  history will be made as this would be the first time we have a Hispanic majority-minority City Council.

The rise of Hispanic political power is now reaching its potential  in San Jose where Hispanic is  about 33% of the total population.  The Hispanic population is diverse and concentrated in D5 (62%), D3(52%) and D7(48%).

For Vietnamese-American community, it will take another 6 years at least before any Vietnamese candidate to have a chance in D7 and D8. 

For District 4, incumbent Councilmember Lan Diep is safe since D4 has 61% Asian.  

An Election Disappointment for Vietnamese-American Candidates in San Jose

The clock has struck at midnight and it is now but all official,  incumbent City Councilmember Tam Nguyen has lost to Maya Esparza.  With mostly provisional ballots left to count, he is trailing by 654 votes.

In the first head to head competition with Esparza four years ago, there were a total of 13,675 ballots cast.  This time so far 15,194 ballots has been counted with another approximately 2,000 ballots left.  This will end up to be the highest midterm election turnout ever in the history of D7.

There were other Vietnamese-American candidates in this year election.  Here are some results -

-  Richarch Tran won re-election for Mayor of Milpitas

-  Van Truong lost city council election of Milpitas

-  Van Le won school board seat for East Side Union High School. 

-  Both Scott Pham and Huong Nguyen lost their re-election bids for SJ Evergreen College.

-  The controversial Khanh Tran is hanging on by 139 votes.  With almost 4,000 ballots left, can he pull it out and  be re-elected as trustee of Alum Rock Union School District.

Maya Esparza Winning Rematch Against Tam Nguyen

With less than 1,500 ballots left, mostly provisional, Maya Esparza seems to have won the rematch against incumbent D7 San Jose City Councilmember Tam Nguyen.   This is district where Vietnamese-American and Hispanic voters dominate the electorate.   Each group represents 1/3 of the total registered voters.

Four years ago in 2014, Nguyen won by 209 votes with a total of 13,675 ballots cast.  This year, with 14,214 cast (and still counting),  Nguyen is behind by 397 votes.  Nguyen will have a tough time catching up since these remaining ballots tend to favor Esparza.

For years, experts have recited about the power of the swing vote of Latino and Asian communities.  Actually, in cities like San Jose, where there is a majority-minority, the white vote is the swing vote.

In San Jose, Hispanics compose 35% of the population, while Asians is 33% and the non-Hispanic whites is 28%.   There are currently 4 Hispanic councilmembers.  With the likely addition of Esparza, San Jose will make history of having 5 Hispanic majority presiding the City Council.

Note that there are five states where there majority - minority as of 2016 - Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Texas and Nevada.  Majority-minority is defined as population is composed of less than 50% non-Hispanic whites.

Tam Nguyen vs. Maya Esparza II and Another Nail Biter

With 9,975 ballots cast, Esparza is trailing Nguyen by 13 votes for the  District 7 San Jose City Council seat.  The trend is in her favor as she was trailing Nguyen by 1,026 votes at the beginning of last night.   There are still over 6,000 ballots to be counted.   Everybody expected this to be a close race just like 4 years.  Esparza lost by less than 200 votes in 2014.  This rematch is nothing but fill of drama so far with Nguyen now the incumbent. 

There will likely be a recount and so this election might not be over until the end of November, it seems.

Janet Nguyen Attacking GOP Candidates to Show Off Her Power

In Tossup State Senate Race, Janet Nguyen Has A Curious Target: Fellow Vietnamese-American GOPs

Locked in a competitive re-election campaign, Republican State Senator Janet Nguyen is lobbing harsh attacks.

And while that's to be expected in the final days of a hard-fought campaign for one California's few remaining tossup seats, the target of Nguyen's harshest attacks is directed at fellow Vietnamese-American Republicans. 

A recent radio ad funded by Nguyen’s campaign features a blistering attack on Tyler Diệp, a fellow Vietnamese-American Orange County Republican in the middle of a close race for the 72^nd Assembly District. Nguyen has bitterly opposed Diep for more than a decade, dating back to her feud with her former mentor Assemblyman Van Tran. 

The Nguyen-funded ad claims that those who support her Democratic opponent Tom Umberg “also support Tom Hayden.” 

In addition to an attack on Diep, the ad includes false and out-of-context quotes to imply that Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do, Nguyen’s former chief of staff, supports Communist officials. The Nguyen audio clips were taken from a speech Do gave in defense of Nguyen. 

Nguyen Funds Fountain Valley Hit Pieces 

On October 12, a Merced County-based political action committee based in Hilmar spent $7,297.64 in campaign mailers attacking Republican Vietnamese-American candidate Nick Le Cong, according to state campaign finance disclosure filings. The same committee spent an additional $3,621.30 on October 17^th to level more attacks on the Fountain Valley candidate. 

Why would a political action committee based in Hilmarspend nearly $11,000 on a city council campaign more than 300 miles away? 

On September 15, the PAC accepted a $25,000 campaign contribution from Janet Nguyen for Senate 2018. Fountain Valley is Nguyen’s hometown.

Nguyen Endorses Democratic Candidates. 

Nguyen has publicly endorsed Mima Velasque (D) over Cecilia Iglesias (R) for Santa Ana city council.  Nguyen also endorsed Jamison Power (D) and Tai Do (D) over other Republican Vietnamese candidates for Westminster city council seats.

In Garden Grove, she went after city council candidate Duy Nguyen with attacks to help his opponent.

Likely to Hurt Vietnamese-American Voter Turnout

The outcome of Nguyen’s attacks could have fallout on other campaigns. Republicans are defending several congressional seats in Orange County and likely need Vietnamese-American voters to turnout in larger numbers. 

Political scientists frequently say that negative campaign suppresses. A 1999 study by professors at Arizona State University found that “voters tend to stay home” when campaigns devolve into negative attacks.