… “Asians,” said Sukhee Kang, who became the first Korean-American to run a major American city when he was elected mayor of Irvine in 2008, “are good for business.”
Whether Asians are also good for votes is one of the biggest political questions driving this year’s midterm races in Orange County, where Democrats are counting on immigrants to help the party pull off, if not quite a blue wave, then at least an unmistakable purpling.
Orange County is now one-fifth Asian and more than one-third Latino, with a Little Saigon in Garden Grove; Westminster, a Koreatown beginning to rival Los Angeles’s in nearby Buena Park; and a thriving Latino community centered in Santa Ana. Forty-five percent of the county’s households speak a language other than English.
In the 45th Congressional District, whose biggest city is Irvine, three of the four Democratic candidates were born to immigrants, including one of the front-runners, Dave Min, a Korean-American law professor at the University of California, Irvine. Whichever Democrat does best in the June 5 primary will challenge Rep. Mimi Walters, the Republican incumbent, in a district that has never elected anyone but Republicans — an area once famous for nurturing the political careers of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. CONT.
Vivian Yee, New York Times