A First-Generation American’s Mission to Revive the Orange County GOP

M ichelle Steel is a different kind of House candidate. For thirty years, Dana Rohrabacher was a mainstay of the California state GOP. A speechwriter and special assistant to President Reagan, Rohrabacher served as the congressman for California’s 48th district from 1989 until 2018, when he was beaten by Democrat Harley Rouda amid the blue wave that helped Democrats retake the House and wiped Republicans out in the cradle of West Coast conservatism, Orange County.

At first glance, Steel — the chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and wife of Shawn Steel, a former chair of the California Republican Party who presently serves on the RNC’s Executive Committee — may appear to be an unremarkable political insider who has been preparing to run for Congress her whole life. But Steel’s story and candidacy are worth more than a glance. Born in Seoul, Steel moved to Japan at 14, when her father was sent there as a diplomat. She later moved to the United States to better learn English — it’s her third language, after Korean and Japanese — and attend college. Steel graduated with a business degree from Pepperdine before going on to earn an MBA from the University of Southern California. Her family followed her to the U.S. after her father passed away.

To hear Steel tell it, she first became interested in politics in 1992, during the infamous Rodney King riots. As a Korean immigrant based in the Los Angeles area, she was particularly concerned about the effects of the chaos on her own community. Steel says that during and after the riots, Koreans were hurt in two distinct ways: Their businesses and property sustained significant damage, and when the police failed to protect them, they were pilloried by the media as rich and selfish for defending themselves. That’s why in 1993, Steel made her first appearance on Radio Seoul, the local Korean station, to explain how to effect change in the American political system. The segment was so popular that the station asked Steel to return every week, which she did for the next 14 years. Having earned a weekly segment, Steel felt obligated to spend more time learning the ins and outs of city government so she could better serve her viewers.

In 2006, Steel made her first foray into electoral politics, mounting a bid to win a seat on the California State Board of Equalization, a tax agency that handles disputes between other agencies and taxpayers. She was inspired to do so by her own mother’s experience as a small-business owner. After moving out of the retail-clothing business and opening a sandwich shop, Steel’s mother received ominous notices that she owed the government a great deal of money — money that she had in fact already paid. Unfamiliar with the language and intimidated by the notices, she paid up again just to relieve her anxiety.

Steel was nervous about throwing her hat in the ring. She worried that she would embarrass herself and that voters would not take her seriously because of her thick accent — she tells me she was nervous about our interview for the same reason — but she felt called to run and woke up one morning to tell her husband about her plan. He was surprised and similarly concerned that the process would be taxing but told her that he would support her if this was what she really wanted. In the primary, she defeated Ray Haynes, an experienced politician who’d spent time in the California Senate and Assembly, by a few points. In the general election, she finished with 57 percent of the vote, besting her nearest competitor by 18.5 points. On the Board of Equalization, she was a relentless advocate for taxpayers. In what she considers to be her greatest accomplishment in the job, she discovered that over $400 million in security deposits was being withheld from business owners, and she made sure that every cent was returned. “I was always on the side of the taxpayer,” she says proudly.

In 2014, Steel resolved to run for the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Again, Shawn asked his wife if she was sure, and again, she was. She won by 24.6 points. Since then, she has been chosen to serve as chair twice, first in 2017 and again in 2020. Her greatest challenge as a supervisor — the COVID-19 crisis — has also occasioned her greatest display of leadership. The Board of Supervisors has been busy this year. It declared a state of emergency in Orange County on February 26, about a week before Governor Gavin Newsom declared a statewide one. It looked out for the most vulnerable by moving the homeless out of the streets and crowded homeless shelters into motel rooms. It funded a PR campaign to inform the public about the importance of mask-wearing and social-distancing. And it suspended late fees on property taxes to minimize the economic damage wrought by the virus. There have still been over 50,000 cases and 1,000 deaths recorded in Orange County, but those numbers are right about where you would expect them to be. It’s the third-largest county in the state, and it is the county with the third-most cases and deaths.

Steel has been a dedicated public servant, and she’s found great electoral success on the local level — she won her 2018 reelection campaign by almost 40 points. When I ask her why she was running for Congress, she says that “Orange County needs someone who will fight for them. I think that’s me.” Steel emphasizes the importance of job creation, taxes, and public safety as important to her would-be constituents. On that last point, she is especially adamant. Her experiences during the ’92 riots have rendered her unsympathetic toward the wave of unrest that hit the nation after George Floyd’s death earlier this year. “99 percent of police are sacrificing for us!” she says.

Despite the soft spots in Rouda’s record — Steel’s campaign has set up an entire website dedicated to his enthusiasm for tax increases, his partisan voting record, and his lackluster support for law enforcement — and an R+4 advantage in the district, the Cook Political Report indicates that the race still leans Democratic because of Rouda’s incumbency advantage and Orange County’s drift away from the GOP in the Trump era. But there are also reasons for Steel to be optimistic. Politico’s 2020 election forecast has the race as a toss-up and notes that Steel, though she has far less name recognition than Rohrabacher, is not plagued by the links to Russia that helped Rouda unseat him after decades in Congress. When I ask Steel about the California GOP’s decline, she predicts that it will not last long. “People are getting really sick of [one-party rule],” she says.

Steel is not a policy wonk — her own campaign website contains only brief summaries of her positions on various issues — or by any means an especially impressive political talent. But she has prevailed electorally every time she’s sought public office because of her work ethic, passion, and ability to live up to her promises. When she promises me that “On November 4, I’m the winner,” I can’t help but think she might be right.