*Updated 11/27/24

It’s official: CA-45 is one of the top three closest U.S. House races of 2024 — and the top one or two narrowest wins for Democrats, with Derek Tran steadily winning by 596 votes.

And it wouldn’t have been possible without MVP’s local partners UNITE HERE, OC Action, and Chispa, working in close coordination through the Battleground California coalition.

The Los Angeles Times just published a feature piece showcasing the role played in this race by Chispa, which was founded in 2017 to grow the power of young, progressive Latine* organizers in Orange County. (*”Latine” is a gender-inclusive form of “Latino/a”.) The whole thing is worth a read (PDF version here).

In short: With early seed funding from MVP, Chispa ran a targeted voter outreach campaign that more than closed the margin of victory.

Do they think Chispa made a difference?

[Bulmaro Vicente, Chispa policy director] pulled up stats on his smartphone: 166,532 phone calls. 18,348 texts. 12,928 doors knocked. 5,745 voters who said they were going to pick Tran.

Key Excerpts

• “They started with policy…. Then they realized they could help candidates. They realized they had trust in the community because they had delivered on big promises.” — Vicente Sarmiento, Orange County Supervisor
• Do they think Chispa made a difference? [Bulmaro Vicente, Chispa policy director] pulled up stats on his smartphone: 166,532 phone calls. 18,348 texts. 12,928 doors knocked. 5,745 voters who said they were going to pick Tran.
• “We realized that we couldn’t keep doing policy work only for one election to roll back everything we had worked on.” — Hairo Cortes, Chispa founder and executive director
• “They didn’t need someone to say, ‘I can do the work for you — pay me.’ They needed someone to give them money to do it for themselves.” — Mehran Khodabandeh, development director for the California Working Families Party

• “We lacked this knowledge for young people to run PACs. Well, we did it — and I hope more do their own here.” — Hector Bustos, Chispa communications director 

• “The 45th was going to come down to Latino engagement. A lot of people we spoke to had never been approached by any politician. There was extreme cynicism. But we reached out. …That’s the cool thing about this team. We’re not new to the issues but new to this game. But those voters we reached out to see themselves in us, and we see ourselves in them.” — Joesé Hernández, Chispa field program director

The Takeaway: Support Local Organizing.

While flipping CA-45 is a triumph in itself, its implications stretch beyond 2024. Tran’s win has further weakened Republicans’ already-tenuous House majority while strengthening Democrats’ path to reclaiming the chamber in 2026.

And, by reaching the win threshold in Orange County — a region long considered a GOP stronghold— Chispa and MVP’s other local partners’ work is laying the foundation for more progressive victories in winnable districts across the country.

As Democrats strategize for 2026 and 2028, this approach offers a clear blueprint: Empower local leaders, invest in long-term infrastructure, and engage overlooked voters.

The moral of the story: Local organizing works — and well-funded local organizing wins elections.

While we at MVP are proud to have been the first to fund Chispa’s PAC, our dream is for donors to be tripping over each other in 2025 to send early funding to the hundreds of year-round local organizations like Chispa that are building long-term grassroots power across the country.

These groups don’t get the media attention (or the staggering levels of funding) that candidate campaigns and ad-centric Super PACs do, but they are going to be an essential key to passing good policies and stopping bad policies during the Trump presidency — and then winning back power in 2026 and 2028.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this post did not mention the critical work done in this district by UNITE HERE, OC Action, and Battleground California.