Ken Calvert

Republican Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim were neck and neck in early primary election returns Tuesday night, June 2 in a heated and expensive fight to represent a GOP-friendly district spanning parts of Orange and Riverside counties.

Results posted by the California Secretary of State showed Calvert, R-Corona, leading Kim, R-Anaheim Hills, 26.8% to 26.2%, in California’s 40th Congressional District. Democrat Esther Kim-Varet was third with 18.4%.

The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.

The race pitted two GOP incumbents against each other in a district stretching from Menifee and Murrieta in Riverside County to Rancho Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo and Villa Park in Orange County.

At stake was whether Calvert, first elected in 1993, would continue his tenure as the Inland Empire’s longest-serving congress member. To do so, he had to beat Kim, a former assembly member who joined Congress in 2021.

Calvert, 72, and Kim, 63, sought refuge in the 40th after California voters passed Proposition 50 in November. The ballot measure redrew the state’s congressional districts to boost Democrats’ chances of picking up more House of Representatives seats.

While the new maps favor Democrats, Republicans have a 9-percentage-point edge in the 40th’s voter registration, making it a GOP-friendly seat.

LIVE ELECTION RESULTS: See a chart of the latest vote counts

In an odd twist for a blue state in which Donald Trump is deeply unpopular, the Calvert vs. Kim fight centered on which lawmaker was more loyal to the president, who did not endorse anyone in the contest.

An anti-Kim ad accused her of threatening Trump and being a “RINO” or Republican in name only. “Stop liberal Young Kim before she stops Trump,” a voiceover in the ad warned.

An ad from Kim’s campaign referenced a 1990s incident in which Calvert was caught in a car with a prostitute in Corona. Calvert was never charged with a crime, though he admitted having sex with the prostitute at a time when he was “feeling intensely lonely.”

“Screwing us, servicing himself, sabotaging Trump. Ken Calvert, what a sleazebag,” a voice in the 30-second ad said.

Besides being highly negative, the race was one of the nation’s most expensive House fights. As of mid-May, more than $17 million had been raised in the 40th, including $7.5 million by Kim and $5.1 million by Calvert.

While the Kim/Calvert fight dominated headlines, other candidates were on the ballot in the 40th, including Kim-Varet, who raised $2.1 million as she hoped to capitalize on an expected blue wave in the midterms.

Besides Kim-Varet, retired firefighter captain Joe Kerr, lawyers Lisa Ramirez and Francis Xavier Hoffman and retired Army officer Claude Keissieh ran as Democrats in the 40th. Nonprofit executive Nina Linh ran as an independent.

California’s top-two primary system usually pits a Republican and a Democrat against each other in the general election. But there’s the chance Kim and Calvert could get enough votes to face each other again in November.

It could be some time before the top-two winners are known. California typically takes weeks to count votes and outcome of close races might not be clear until mid- to late June.