Republican Young Kim conceded defeat Saturday evening to Democrat Gil Cisneros in the race for the open seat in California’s 39th congressional district.
Kim was the latest and last Republican candidate to fall in the seven California districts targeted by Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections. Each of the districts was represented by a Republican, but saw Hillary Clinton win more votes than Donald Trump in 2016. Six of the seven targeted districts have flipped; only Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) seems to have survived — and, if so, by a slim margin.
Kim, a former member of the state legislature, ran a strong campaign and was considered likely to win by pollsters. On Election Day, she had a sizable lead over Cisneros, a lottery winner who had only recently moved into the district and had been plagued by an allegation of sexual misconduct through much of the campaign.
But ballots continued to be counted, thanks to generous state rules that allow voters to mail in their ballots as late as Election Day itself. Like the other Republicans who fell, Kim saw her lead erode and then disappear.
Kim’s defeat means that Orange County, a traditional Republican stronghold, will now be entirely represented by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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