Election 2018: Democrats control all Orange County House seats as Gil Cisneros wins 39th Congressional District, completing blue sweep
Democrats are set to control every House seat in Orange County, completing their swift and historic sweep of the conservative bastion, after the Associated Press on Saturday, Nov. 17 projected that Gil Cisneros would win the 39th Congressional District race.
The region’s sudden political shift marks a sharp rebuke of the GOP and of President Donald Trump, who acted as an accelerant for a county that has slowly crept more Democratic over the past three decades.
The 39th was the last to flip of the five Southern California Republican-held seats targeted by Democrats this cycle. Democrats trailed in all but one of those districts on election night but clawed back as late tallies of vote-by-mail and provisional ballots swung heavily in their favor.
Cisneros widened his lead on Saturday to 3,020 votes after trailing his GOP opponent, Young Kim, by nearly 3,900 votes on Election Day.
Cisneros, a Navy veteran and former Republican whose life changed when he won a $266 million jackpot in 2010, will represent a district spanning Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. The seat has is currently represented by 13-term GOP Congresswoman Ed Royce, who in January opted to retire.
“This campaign taught me so much,” Cisneros said in a statement. “In one of the most diverse districts in the country I learned that for all of our differences, we all care about the same things.
“We want our kids to feel safe at school, good jobs that allow us to provide for our families, affordable healthcare that ensures our loved ones receive the life-saving care they need, and a clean environment for our children and grandchildren. Most of all, we want to live in a world brought together by hope, not divided by hate.
“I continue to be humbled by the outpouring of support I received throughout the campaign. Tonight’s victory would not be possible without the thousands of volunteers who dedicated countless hours on my behalf. This is their victory as much as it is mine.”
Kim’s campaign could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Democrats across the county celebrated the momentous victory.
Fran Sdao, who was elected chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Orange shortly after Trump won office, credited the local grassroots activism that ignited following the 2016 election as having galvanized Democrats’ “historic tidal wave.”
“We knew we could change our future,” Sdao wrote. “We marched. We reorganized. We knocked on doors for 18 months straight. And now, we are making history.”
Dan Jacobson, chair of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County, dubbed a new slogan for local liberals: “Orange is the new Blue.”
Meanwhile, Republicans were left searching for answers, with some saying the party needs to change its platforms or messaging, and others lamenting how the GOP had been outmatched by Democrats in fundraising and field operations.
Democrats first sensed there was an opportunity to win Orange County’s GOP House districts during the 2016 election, when voters in each of the county’s Republican-held congressional seats favored Hillary Clinton over Trump. That same election, a Democrat came within 1,621 votes of unseating nine-term GOP incumbent Rep. Darrell Issa. By January, Issa and Royce had both announced their retirements.
“The past two years have been hard, but change is coming,” Cisneros said in his statement. “The hard work begins now. The people of this district will receive the representation they deserve. I am honored by their support and humbled by the opportunity to represent them in Congress.”
The 39th is one of the nation’s most diverse congressional districts, where two-thirds of all residents are minorities and a quarter of registered voters are foreign-born. Amid Trump’s attempts to curtail legal immigration, Kim, a Korean immigrant and Royce’s former outreach director, was forced to distance herself from some of the presidents’ policies, assuring locals that she’d fight any effort to cut family-based immigration programs.
Cisneros, meanwhile, told foreign-born residents another message: “The Republican agenda is anti-immigration,” he said.
The contest was the second most expensive House race in the country this cycle, with $34.6 million in total spending, including $8.8 million that Cisneros gave to his own campaign.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, which works elected Republicans to the House, spent $6.3 million attacking Democratic candidates. That included a slew of TV ads repeating a local woman’s allegation that Cisneros has sexually harassed her. That accusation that threatened to derail Cisneros’ campaign until the woman rescinded her claim in October, chalking it up to a misunderstanding, prompting the CLF to pull the ads.
Democrats have now won six of the seven Republican House seats they targeted in California this election. In Orange County, those victories include Laguna Beach businessman Harley Rouda defeating Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in the 48th, UC Irvine law professor Katie Porter beating Rep. Mimi Walters in the 45th, and San Juan Capistrano environmental attorney Mike Levin winning the 49th.