As the midterms loom, one key House race in California is drawing significant attention both to Asian Americans in the district, and from them.
Democrat Jay Chen is challenging Republican incumbent Michelle Steel in a newly drawn and the highly competitive congressional district that encompasses the northwestern portion of Orange County. The race features a rare matchup between two Asian Americans, and the result hinges on Asian Americans, who make up about a third of the district’s voters.
“I think here, we’re seeing a wake-up call,” Connie Chung Joe, chief executive of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, told NBC News. “But I think still within this country as a whole, there’s this lack of recognition and understanding about the importance and value of the Asian American voter.”
“I understand the difficulties Asian Americans face when it comes to racism, high taxes and an overbearing, costly government that makes it difficult for hardworking families to succeed,” Steel said. Steel has also cited in campaign videos and press releases Chen’s 2010 vote in favor of creating a Mandarin program, funded by the Confucius Institute, a network of Chinese language and culture centers partially backed by the Chinese government. They began opening up in the U.S. during the Bush administration and aroused suspicion. By 2020, the State Department designated the institutes “as a foreign mission of the People’s Republic of China.
In other Facebook ads, Chen similarly accused Steel and her husband, Shawn Steel, of having links to communism and officials in Asia. The Chen campaign did not address whether it had also intentionally tried to tie Steel to communism through the ads, but accused Steel of being “willing to stoop to the lowest level of politicking to remain in office and can not be trusted.”
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