In Orange county, California, the Republican congresswoman Michelle Steel is running ads using doctored images to depict her Democratic opponent Jay Chen as sympathetic to communist China. In Los Angeles, the incumbent Democratic representative Jimmy Gomez has sent out flyers accusing his progressive challenger David Kim of “campaigning with QAnon support”.
In several congressional districts in the Golden state, close races in recent weeks have become vitriolic.
The tension is a reflection of the heated battle between Democrats and Republicans for control of the House, a fight in which California is key: although the state overall leans blue, up to 10 congressional seats are up for grabs here. But even in races with two Democrats, clashes over what it means to be progressive have become rancorous.
“California is often considered a done deal for Democrats, not a battleground,” said Pei-Te Lien, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “But when you look at the congressional elections here, it’s contentious.”
In the rural and industrial outskirts of LA, the race between incumbent Republican David Valadao and Democrat Rudy Salas has become the second-most expensive House race in the country. Also in southern California, the Democratic representative Katie Porter is running neck-and-neck with Republican challenger Scott Baugh, who has run misleading campaign ads saying Porter voted to hire thousands of new IRS agents to go after average families and small businesses.
In a rural district stretching across much of the state’s eastern border, Republican Kevin Kiley has falsely accused his Democratic opponent Kermit Jones of wanting to “defund the police” – adopting a tactic that Republicans around the country are using amid heightened voter concern about crime.
But the races between Steel and Chen, and Gomez and Kim have stood out as especially rancorous.
Steel, one of the first Korean American women elected to Congress, is running in a newly formed district that binds together voters of Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Indian descent to give Asian Americans a bigger voice. But her campaign has adopted what many Asian American groups have called “red-baiting” messages, exploiting many immigrant voters’ distrust of communism.
In Vietnamese and English language mailers, doctored images show Chen holding the Communist Manifesto while teaching a classroom full of children. A TV ad features actors playing Chinese Communist party intelligence officers, saying Chen is “one of us, a socialist comrade who even supported Bernie Sanders for supreme leader”.
Chen, a navy veteran, has called the portrayal absurd. “My grandmother fled from Communist China to Taiwan,” he said. “By suggesting I am a CCP socialist comrade, Michelle Steel is not only playing dirty politics by questioning my patriotism, she is playing into harmful stereotypes, fueling anti-Asian hate.”
Lance Tover, a spokesperson for Steel, pointed to her record of condemning anti-Asian hate, including her congressional testimony on rising hate crimes against the Asian American community.
Steel’s accusation links Chen to communism over a 2010 vote he took as a local school board member to use a free Mandarin language program that ultimately didn’t get adopted. In the years since, the program has drawn scrutiny for its link to the Chinese government.
Lien, who specializes in Asian American politics, said that while Steel’s portrayal of Chen could work to convince Vietnamese American voters who fled communism and came to the US as refugees, the strategy could backfire. “Ultimately Steel is harming the Asian American image as a whole,” said Lien, opening up herself and others to stereotypes about being perpetual foreigners. “Given her own experience as a Korean-born immigrant American woman, I was very disheartened to know that she would use this attack against another Asian American.”
Steel has lobbed back her own accusations of racism, saying Chen has mocked her accent when he said people needed “an interpreter to figure out exactly what she’s saying”. Chen has said he was referring to her “convoluted” talking points, and wouldn’t think to mock accents given that he grew up in an immigrant household where family members faced discrimination because of how they spoke.
Although California’s House races have often been competitive, and the corresponding campaign messaging often aggressive, attacks in recent years have stood out in that they have focused on ideology and identity, Lien said.
In a very different California race between Gomez and Kim, both progressive Democrats looking to win in a blue, largely Latino district – Gomez has sent out mailers juxtaposing Kim with images of the January 6 rioters and Donald Trump.
The accusation of running with far-right QAnon support refers to the 2020 race when Gomez and Kim last faced off, and Kim had asked the losing candidates in the primary for their support. Among them, it turned out that Republican Joanne Wright ascribed to QAnon conspiracy theories.
Steve Barkan, a consultant for Gomez, said Kim “aligned himself with QAnon leader Joanne Wright” when he accepted her endorsement, “even after he knew of her rightwing extremist views and conspiracy theories”.
Kim said he wasn’t aware of Wright’s views at the time. Had he known about Wright’s support for QAnon, he wouldn’t have accepted her endorsement, Kim said. But accusing him of embracing the far-right over a two-year-old oversight is cynical, Kim said. “That’s going super low.”
Kim said he hoped the campaigns could focus on the true differences between him and Gomez, which boil down to how each would address economic inequities and ultimately how they would approach governing.
In an increasingly divided political climate, Lien said attacks based on ideology have become more common, in California and nationwide. “There’s a Trump effect happening,” Lien said – referring to the former president’s ushering in of a new hyper-partisan political era.
“Very, very tight races easily can turn negative,” she said, and it reflects a national polarization.
