Endorsement: Young Kim for Congress in the 40th District
California's Proposition 50 redistricting plan, designed by Democrats to counter Texas' pro-GOP gerrymander, will likely lead to a few Democratic pickups. To get there, Democrats had to create a handful of solidly Republican seats to consolidate GOP votes. One of those districts, the California 40th, has resulted in a grudge match between two current Republicans, Rep. Young Kim of Orange County and Rep. Ken Calvert of Riverside County. The seat encompasses portions of both counties.
Several largely unknown Democrats have entered the race, but the race boils down to Kim v. Calvert. Choosing between the two is like choosing between eczema or psoriasis, but we endorse Kim because she's better positioned to function in a Congress that will probably be controlled by Democrats. Admittedly, we had to hold our nose for this one.
Before she chose to run in an overwhelming GOP district, Kim served as a thoughtful legislator who wasn't afraid to reach across the aisle. She voted to censure President Donald Trump for his deplorable January 6 actions. She cosponsored the Dignity Act, a bipartisan attempt to provide border security while creating a path to citizenship for Dreamers. And she sponsored a modest bill requiring the president to provide Congress with 48 hours notice before changing tariff policy.
When she ran in 2022, we found her philosophy amorphous, but said she "distinguished herself as part of a rare breed of Republican moderates." In 2024, she avoided discussions about Trump, but expressed unabashed opposition to tariffs. Now that she's in a race focused on winning Republican base voters, Kim would have us believe she's ultra MAGA.
In our interview, she touted her unwavering support for the president, argued "tariffs can level the playing field" and insisted that border security is her top priority. Her social-media campaign is almost a caricature of a MAGA candidate as she reposted a meme referring to our governor as "Gavin Newscum." Politicians should at least be able to stake out consistent and thoughtful positions – not change dramatically depending on the weather.
Why not Ken Calvert? Well, he isn't any more principled and he's willing to plumb the depths of political viciousness – even referring to Kim as a "Trump traitor." Whereas Kim seems like a moderate-conservative who is positioning herself as MAGA, Calvert seems fundamentally like a Reagan/Bush conservative who is doing the same thing. He's leaned hard into anti-immigrant posturing, claiming that even modest reforms such as Kim's amount to "amnesty." On social media, he touts his high rating from a group devoted to lower immigration – not just illegal immigration, but legal immigration as well.
Did we mention that he was first sworn in to Congress in 1993, when Bill Clinton took the oath as president? Calvert is a party loyalist who has supported virtually every war and big-spending program his GOP colleagues supported. He, too, has changed his stripes as politics dictated – e.g., his newfound appreciation of gay rights after Palm Springs became part of his district. Quite the change from the Ken Calvert whose 1994 campaign for Congress went after Democrat Mark Takano for being gay. His website boasts of the pork-barrel spending that he's brought home from Washington. Simply put, he's a swamp creature.
It's a bad choice between two phonies running disreputable campaigns, but we can at least hope that after the campaign Kim will return to form and put practical governing above MAGA posturing.
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.