O.C.'s 1st District has a first: all Vietnamese candidates
Incumbent Janet Nguyen must defend her county record and her anticommunist credentials as her opponents, Dina Nguyen and Hoa Van Tran, vie for the county supervisor's seat.
Political observers called it a "political earthquake" last year when two little-known Vietnamese candidates upstaged a field of contenders -- including a former assemblyman -- for an open supervisor's seat in central Orange County.
A year later, the change in the landscape appears complete. For the first time, all candidates vying for a seat are Vietnamese.
Incumbent Janet Nguyen is being challenged by fellow Republican Dina Nguyen, a Garden Grove councilwoman, and Hoa Van Tran, a political newcomer and the lone Democrat in the race.
"The political establishment now knows that the Vietnamese voter group is a player to be reckoned with," said Lan Nguyen, a trustee of the Garden Grove school board, and a supporter of Dina Nguyen.
(None of the Ngyuens in this story are related.)
The 2007 special election registered the Vietnamese community as a voting force when Janet Nguyen and Trung Nguyen, her chief rival, took nearly half the votes in the 10-candidate field, upsetting party-endorsed candidates. Vietnamese voters make up only a quarter of the electorate in the 1st District.
The supervisor's seat, vacated last year when Lou Correa was elected to the state Senate, includes Santa Ana, Westminster and Garden Grove. The area is heavily Latino and had been controlled in recent years by Democrats until Janet Nguyen's election.
And there has been no rest for Janet Nguyen since. A judge was ultimately needed to decide the winner in the 2007 election that was decided by a three-vote margin. Trung Nguyen challenged the results in court and filed several legal complaints against Janet Nguyen. She has spent much of her brief time in office raising money to counter the legal battles.
"She has had to spend a lot of time dealing with challenges to the election, as opposed to getting ready for reelection," said Dave Gilliard, her campaign consultant.
Nguyen also faced controversy over fundraising early in her term when she sent an e-mail to potential donors asking them to make payments to her lawyer's account to help with mounting legal bills, a move she later conceded was a mistake. She wrongly told donors they could give amounts that exceeded the county's contribution limit.
Her campaign returned $12,500 to donors.
Despite initial struggles, Janet Nguyen's supporters said she seemed to have found her footing for her reelection campaign, having secured the backing of the Orange County Republican Party, as well as other key endorsements.
