Refugee from Vietnam elected to US Congress

A belated contest for a House of Representatives Congressional seat in the USA has delivered a result against the trend.  A Republican challenger with no political experience defeating a Democrat incumbent with decades of experience in the current electoral climate is significant in itself.  In addition, the winner is someone who came to the US as a refugee from South Vietnam as an eight year in 1975, while the loser was an African-American in a district with a majority black population.  The Republican candidate, Anh ‘Joseph’ Cao defeated the Democrat incumbent William Jefferson in a House of Reps contest in Louisiana, where voting had originally been delayed due to a hurricane.  This no doubt helped Mr Cao, as it meant a much lower voter turnout.  The fact Mr Jefferson had been indicted for bribery wouldn’t have helped his cause either (allegedly having $90 000 in cash stashed in your freezer is never a good look), but incredibly he still won the primaries to be endorsed as the Democrat candidate, so he must have retained a fair bit of public support.

Anh Cao becomes the first Vietnamese-American in US Congress, rounding off an election which delivered a few other results demonstrating the racial and cultural diversity of the USA.  Despite being a Republican, his election will probably also help rather than hinder efforts to get comprehensive immigration reform measures passed through the Congress – a big task but one which will be important for Barack Obama and the Democrats if they want to retain the levels of support they currently have from Hispanic Americans in particular.  There will be some on the Republican side who are likely to support this – probably including John McCain – but also some of the small number of the ‘new guard’ of Republicans, of which Mr Cao has just become the newest.