In Competitive SoCal Race, API and Latino Vote Key

By Dr. Julie Martinez Ortega

Black Star Canyon, CA

This week we take a look at a very competitive seat, the CA-40, currently held by Republican Young Kim. In 2018, Kim challenged the incumbent, Democrat Gil Cisneros and lost by a very slim margin. But two years later, she prevailed in a rematch with Cisneros during the 2020 presidential election, with a lead of only 1,000 votes on election night. The district boundaries have since changed with 2020 redistricting, but Congresswoman Kim managed to hold the seat in 2022 despite a strong showing by the Democratic challenger.

Very competitive district

Cook Political Report rates the CA-40 as R+2, and categorizes it as “Likely Republican.” In contrast, our NMI score for the district is “Even,” which indicates that the district matches the average of the national partisan vote share (Democrat vs. Republican) for the 2020 and 2016 cycles. The NMI score suggests that this is a very competitive district, in keeping with the actual vote outcomes over the past three cycles. Accordingly, it is one of the 18 districts that would have voted for Joe Biden in 2020 had the district existed in its current configuration while also being won by a Republican—Young Kim—in that 2020 congressional race.

Landlocked area south of LA

The CA-40 is a landlocked area located just south of Los Angeles. It takes up the majority of northern and eastern Orange County, and parts of southwestern San Bernardino and western Riverside Counties. It includes the cities of Orange, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, and Laguna Hills as well as a large tract of sparsely populated inland desert. To its west (not part of CA-40) lie the well-known beach cities of Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel as well as Irvine.

The median household income is $124,144 and the district is just under half white (48.5%). Latinos (25.2%) and APIs (19%) comprise most of the other half. Republicans hold at least a 4 percentage point advantage in voter registration.

Young Kim, last of Congress moderates

Young Kim, 61, is a former businessperson who was born in South Korea and attended high school in Hawaii. She’s considered one of the few remaining moderates in Congress and has managed to not make herself a target for challengers from either the Right or Left. In 2022, she had a poor showing in the primary, coming in behind Democrat Pakistani American physician Asif Mahmood. But by November, she’d solidified her supporters and won 56.8% of the vote. Mahmood focused much of his campaign messaging on the threat to women’s health and choice, which will once again be a key issue nationally in the 2024 election. 

Joe Kerr, veteran firefighter, labor leader

This Election Day, Kim will face Democrat Joe Kerr, a veteran firefighter of 34 years as well as a statewide labor leader in California. According to his campaign website, Kerr was elected as the first president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters Association, a position he held for 17 years. He is the former vice president of the California Professional Firefighters, and a former vice president of the Orange County Central Labor Council (AFL-CIO). Through his leadership in labor, he’s pushed for and won significant policy changes that benefit working people, address climate change, and public safety in California. 

API and Latino voter turnout must surge for Dems

To win this November, Kerr is going to have to light a fire under the district’s API and Latino voters and drive them to the ballot box. He has the benefit of running in a presidential election cycle, which will boost turnout overall. However, he needs Latino and API turnout to surge at a higher rate than their white counterparts in order to get within striking distance of Kim.

For example, in 2020 when the then-incumbent, Gil Cisneros, came within about 4,000 votes of Kim, turnout among API voters lagged behind white turnout by 9 percentage points (84% white and 75% API) and Latino turnout lagged behind white turnout (73%) by 11 percentage points. Contrast these turnout differences with the 2022 election in which Mahmood challenged Kim. In that cycle, API turnout (47%) lagged behind that of whites (65%) by 18 percentage points. Latino turnout (42%) lagged behind whites by 23 percentage points. In other words, the difference in turnout between Latinos and whites and APIs and whites doubled.

Kerr needs to not only reverse the drop in participation by Latinos and APIs during the midterm cycle, he must also raise their base level of participation in the traditionally higher turnout presidential cycle.