Republican incumbents Young Kim and Ken Calvert, who are trying to keep their spots in Congress, are facing a challenge from a host of Democrats in California’s 40th District.
This seat, which blends portions of Kim and Calvert’s current districts, spans from Mission Viejo in Orange County up into Woodcrest, Menifee and Murrieta in Riverside County. The district was reconfigured under Proposition 50, the ballot measure that passed last year to redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts. The new district includes pieces of the current ones represented by Kim and Calvert and is considered a fairly safe Republican seat.
President Trump would have won this district by 12 points in 2024.
Who are the candidates?
- Ken Calvert: Republican, incumbent member of Congress
Calvert, the longest-serving Republican member of California’s congressional delegation, is a Corona native who was first elected in 1992. He serves on the House Committee on Appropriations.
His legislative priorities, according to his district website, include strengthening the economy, fixing what he calls “our broken immigration system,” advocating for veterans and service members and coming up with solutions for California’s water issues.
- Young Kim: Republican, incumbent member of Congress
Kim was one of three Korean American women who were the first to be elected to Congress in 2020. She won reelection in 2022 and 2024. Kim serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Financial Services and House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
Before she was elected to Congress, she served in the state Assembly for two years. Kim also worked for more than two decades for Orange County’s Rep. Ed Royce during his stint as a U.S. House member.
- Esther Kim Varet: Democrat, art gallery owner
Varet, who lives in Trabuco Canyon, has a Ph.D in art history, criticism and conservation from Columbia University. She is the founder and director of the contemporary art gallery Various Small Fires.
Her priorities include protecting reproductive rights, strengthening schools, combating climate change, immigration reform and rebuilding the country’s middle class, according to her campaign website.
- Lisa Ramirez: Democrat, immigration attorney
Ramirez, a Southern California native, is the owner and partner of U.S. Immigration Law Group. She attended Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and has a Bachelor of Arts from Scripps College in political science and religious studies, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Affordability is a cornerstone of her campaign along with immigration reform, climate stewardship, education and women’s health.
- Joseph Kerr: Democrat, retired fire captain
Kerr spent 34 years as a fire captain with the Orange County Fire Authority and served 17 years as president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters Assn., a labor union that represents more than 1,100 firefighters. He ran unsuccessfully for the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 2018, the state Senate in 2022 and Congress in 2024.
- Claude Keissieh: Democrat, electrical engineer
Keissieh is a U.S. Army veteran who served four tours in Iraq and later on a mission in Afghanistan, a small business owner, an adjunct college professor and an electrical engineer, according to his campaign website.
He previously worked with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to teach incarcerated people how to become electricians, his website says, and last year joined the California Department of Transportation as an electrical engineer.
- Nina Linh: Independent, nonprofit executive director
Linh started the WonderSeed Foundation, a nonprofit that uses neuroscience and technology to help at-risk youth, in 2018 after grappling with her son’s mental health struggles. She previously was a television producer and wrote a parenting book and a series of children’s books.
She’s running as an independent because she feels the “two-party system is broken” and the public is tired of hyperpartisan politics.
Democrat Francis Xavier Hoffman also is running.
Where they stand on immigration
Calvert for years has advocated for immigration reform, which he says must begin with controlling the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent people from entering illegally.
In 1996, he authored legislation that later became the E-Verify program, a tool used by employers to check the immigration status of newly hired employees. In 2023, he introduced legislation that would expand the use of the program. The bill, the Legal Workforce Act, was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary and the House committees on Ways and Means and Education and Workforce last year.
Calvert told The Times he favors passing legislation that guarantees a secure border and “ends the job magnet.”
“I support a system that rewards those who follow the rules and wait their turn, not one that gives a fast pass or grants amnesty to those who cut in line,” he said.
Last year, Calvert voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act, which allowed the Department of Homeland Security to detain noncitizens who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting. Kim also voted in favor of the legislation.
Kim has identified border security as a key issue in her campaign. She voted in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated $46.5 billion for border wall construction and additional funds for hiring Border Patrol agents. Calvert also voted in favor of the bill.
On her campaign website, Kim states that former President Biden “opened our border and purposely created a crisis that overwhelmed law enforcement and allowed deadly fentanyl to flood into our country.”
“It’s simple: enforce our laws, secure the border, no amnesty and put American safety first,” she wrote.
Varet supports the DREAM Act, which if passed would offer a path to legal status and citizenship for thousands of DACA recipients — undocumented people who were brought to the U.S. as children and given federal protections — and other undocumented minors, according to her campaign website. She also is in favor of legislation that would reduce green card backlogs, establishes a path to citizenship for people who have been in the country for a certain number of years, for people who have passed a background check and those who have worked in the agricultural industry.
She wrote that “undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. and their children cannot and should not be removed other than for legitimate criminal justice or immigration law violation convictions.”
She supports providing a path to amnesty and providing funds to boost the number of immigration judges, consular officers and naturalization officers.
Linh, who came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam as a young child, told The Times she supports “secure, orderly and lawful immigration.” She added that a functioning immigration system would protect everyone, including those who seek to enter the country.
“Real reform means a funded immigration court system, smart technology at ports of entry, and cooperation with origin countries on root causes. It means agents who identify themselves, follow the law, and are held accountable when they do not. It means a legal pathway that works, not one so backlogged that doing things right means waiting 15 years,” she said.
As an immigration attorney, Ramirez believes America should provide permanent legal status and a path to citizenship for Dreamers and immigrants who have contributed to the country for years.
“Our immigration laws need an overhaul and to be brought into the 21st century, giving workers more flexibility and options for people who are waiting decades to complete the legal process,” she told The Times. “In the meantime, we need to keep our communities safe from unlawful ICE enforcement while supporting effective community policing, accountability and trust in law enforcement…”
Kerr said immigration policies aren’t working, noting that it’s not simply a choice between “open borders and cruelty.”
He supports expanding immigration courts to eliminate backlogs, protecting Dreamers and creating a pathway to citizenship for people who contribute to the U.S., simplifying the process of legal immigration and boosting accountability for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations to ensure enforcement is focused on real public safety threats.
“We can enforce the law with strength and we can do it with basic human dignity. These goals are not in conflict,” he wrote on his campaign website.
Where they stand on climate change
In 2024, Kim co-sponsored the Championing Local Efforts to Advance Resilience Act, proposed bipartisan legislation that would authorize $100 million annually over five years to help states strengthen infrastructure and prepare for extreme weather and natural disasters. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
In May 2025, Kim partnered with Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine) to introduce the Building Resiliency and Understanding of Shrublands to Halt (BRUSH) Fires Act, which aims to boost wildfire mitigation efforts in shrubland ecosystems.
Kim and Calvert also co-sponsored bipartisan legislation to improve the health and resiliency of giant sequoias, which have been threatened by California wildfires.
But Kim also faced criticism from environmental groups for voting for legislation that reduces environmental regulations.
Calvert told The Times he favors focusing on “mitigating for a changing climate instead of imposing more taxes and regulations that kill jobs and make everything more expensive.”
He opposes California’s Cap-and-Invest program, which sets a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions from major polluters, and believes the Trump administration was right to stop the state’s efforts to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035.
The solution to climate change, Calvert said, is “water storage … better forest management to stop these catastrophic fires before they start and investing in infrastructure so we can better handle whatever Mother Nature throws our way.”
In February, Calvert announced he’d helped secure $67 million for Riverside County infrastructure projects, including several water-related projects, as part of an appropriations package.
On her campaign website, Varet said she will “demand responsible, science-based solutions” to protect the public and keep the country competitive.
She vows to support legislation that would hold large fossil fuel companies accountable for climate change, repeal tax breaks for the oil and gas industry and advance the transition to renewable energy.
“Pollution and climate change threaten not only our national forests but our health, our homes and our quality of life,” she wrote.
Linh told The Times she will push for mandatory modernization of utility infrastructure to prevent power lines from sparking fires, invest in forest and vegetation management and modernize water infrastructure and early warning systems.
On emissions, Linh said she believes “incentives and innovation will always outperform heavy-handed mandates.” She supports expanding clean transit options, incentivizing employers to adopt flexible work policies to reduce commute emissions, deploying smart traffic technology and giving small businesses tiered time lines and tax credits to transition.
She also vows to push for federal oversight of insurance companies that abandon fire-prone states like California.
“The climate crisis has become an affordability crisis,” she said. “People who were already struggling to stay housed are now one policy cancellation away from financial collapse. This is not an abstract environmental issue. It is happening to families right now.”
Ramirez supports policies that call for responsible energy development, innovation in renewable technologies, improving energy efficiency in buildings and transportation, and strengthening infrastructure to withstand stronger storms and higher temperatures. It’s critical, she said, to restore the historical function of the Environmental Protection Agency and reinstate protections for air and water.
“Environmental stewardship and economic growth are not opposing goals — they reinforce one another,” she told The Times.
As a firefighter, Kerr said he saw the effects of climate change firsthand. He supports funding for advanced wildfire detection technology, more resources for firefighters, strengthening incentives for homeowners to harden against wildfires, clean energy and climate resilient infrastructure and strengthening federal disaster relief programs.
