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.  

Lawsuit Against State Senator Janet Nguyen?

With the upcoming general election finally getting some attention, a strange thing happens in Orange County and State Senator Janet Nguyen (R). 

Currently, she is an incumbent state senator (D34) running basically unopposed since her opponent, Tom Umberg (D), is not serious candidate by any stretch of imagination.   She has a war chest of close to $1.3 million while he has less than 1/10 in his campaign fund.   The Democratic Party has no interest in this race and is not supporting him financially.  He lost to Janet Nguyen 11 years ago in an OC Supervisor race and has not been in politics since.

With all the Vietnamese votes behind her, she is a sure in for landslide win.    However, whether it is paranoia or hubris, she sent out a hit piece to the Vietnamese community calling him a communist sympathizer because 26 years ago, he worked with Tom Hayden, a state legislature who opposed the Vietnam War.

Now, he is a retired Colonel in the Army after tour of duty as a paratrooper and a special prosecutor of terror suspects.    He served over 30 years  and  had top secret / SCI security clearance.  His wife is Brigadier General Robin Umberg.

To many people, this is a far stretch by Nguyen to call him a communist / communist sympathizer. 

But again, Nguyen and her cohorts have been attacking Westminster City Councilmember Tyler Diep as a communist sympathizer for the last 9 months, trying to derail Diep's state assembly campaign.  The reason for this defamation, Diep works for a Vietnamese TV station that is mostly owned by Thuy Nga Paris By Night, the show entertainment production company that hired singers and actors who are also performing in VN.

Umberg's lawyer recently sent out a cease and desist letter.  Nguyen did not response so now the ball is in Umberg's court.

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