Korean American Young Kim reelected to U.S. House of Representatives

Korean American and Republican Congresswoman Young Kim was pronounced the winner of California's 40th district.

Republican Rep. Young Kim speaks during her meeting with Korean Unification Minister in March in Seoul. [YONHAP]

Korean American Congresswoman Young Kim, a Republican from California, won reelection for a third term in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Associated Press called the race on Thursday, confirming Kim’s victory in California’s 40th Congressional District.

As of 9:16 p.m., Kim led with 168,515 votes — 56.4 percent of the 74 percent of votes counted so far — while her Democratic opponent, Joe Kerr, got 130,259 votes, or 43.6 percent of the counted ballots.

Her district encompasses the eastern part of Orange County, an area with a significant Korean American population, as well as some parts of the San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Kim was born in Incheon, Korea, and moved to Guam, a Pacific island that is a U.S. territory, in 1975, where she completed middle school and high school. She relocated to the mainland of the U.S. for her college education at the University of Southern California. She first joined the political sphere as an aide to former Republican Congressman Ed Royce.

In 2014, she won a seat in the California State Assembly, marking her first elected office. After an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2018, she ran again in 2020, this time winning and becoming one of the first Korean American women in U.S. Congress, before successfully winning reelection in 2022.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]