Five Democrats running against each other for a single seat was too much, thought Jimmy Pham.
So the Westminster attorney last week dropped out of the race for California’s 45th congressional district, opting to endorse one of his former primary opponents, Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Nguyen-Penaloza.
And he set his sights on a different campaign: the 70th Assembly district, officially launching his bid on Friday, Oct. 20.
It took him several weeks to come to that decision, Pham said. Mentors and friends had reached out to him months ago telling him there was a need for a Democrat to run in AD-70, represented by former Westminster Mayor Tri Ta, a Republican.
“At first, I didn’t want to switch, because I was in the middle of a congressional race,” said Pham, who is of Vietnamese descent. “At that time, there were four people in the race. But when the fifth Democrat jumped in, it affected me.”
“There were now five Democrats running, and three were of Vietnamese descent,” he said.
The race for CA-45, held by Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Seal Beach, has drawn several candidates, including Nguyen-Penaloza, Brea resident Aditya Pai, UC Irvine Law grad Cheyenne Hunt and attorney Derek Tran. Nguyen-Penaloza and Tran are of Vietnamese descent.
Pham said he ended his congressional campaign “to unify the party.”
“Steel is going to be one of the two to advance past the primary,” he said. “So why are we fighting against each other? Why is the Democratic Party, in this instance, so divisive?”
The 70th Assembly district includes Westminster, Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Los Alamitos, Stanton and Rossmoor, plus parts of Santa Ana and Huntington Beach. It was redrawn last year in the decennial redistricting process with the goal of ensuring much of the county’s Vietnamese community could be clustered together and retain political clout.
Nearly 40% of voters in the district are Asian, with Vietnamese Americans comprising the largest…
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