“Young Kim, thank you,” President Donald Trump says on a recent mailer sent to voters in California’s 40th Congressional District.
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“Young Kim 100% pro-Trump,” boasts another mailer.
Images on the mailers appear to be taken from an April TV ad and a May Instagram post from Rep. Young Kim‘s campaign. But no, the glossy fliers aren’t from her reelection campaign or a PAC that supports her.
Instead, they say they’re from a group that supports fellow GOP Rep. Ken Calvert in the race, Americans 4 Security PAC. A disclaimer on these mailers — and others that are more blatantly negative about Kim — says they were paid for by the PAC.
That may seem odd considering how adamant Calvert was in the primary that he was the candidate most aligned with the Republican president.
But it makes sense, election experts said, if you consider who is receiving the mailers.
Households with registered Democratic and no party preference voters reported receiving the mailers tying Kim to Trump.
“The key in this mailing is not just the message, but the target audience,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political messaging at USC and UC Berkeley.
“Given Trump’s approval ratings, with no party preference voters, it stands to reason that a pro-Calvert group would be trying to convince those voters that a vote for Kim is a vote for Trump,” Schnur said.
“This mailer isn’t an effort to win Calvert new supporters, but rather to discourage voters who would be more inclined to vote for Kim just to stay home.”
Candidates, across the board, typically focus on appealing to their base in the primary — but shift more to the middle for the general election in an attempt to win over more voters. While that is still true, to an extent, in California’s 40th Congressional District race — while both Calvert and Kim fought over who was the most loyal to Trump in the spring, recent attacks from either side have been about who is the most “corrupt” candidate — it is a bit out of the ordinary because it’s a battle between two incumbent Republicans.
Only one will win — and they’ll need to do it by walking a tightrope between winning over independents and other non-GOP voters and avoiding angering the leader of their party, who is known for targeting those he sees as unloyal.
The Calvert-versus-Kim showdown is the result of last year’s mid-cycle redistricting effort, the partisan and voter-approved redrawing of California’s congressional boundary lines meant to favor Democrats in more House districts. It created, with the 40th Congressional District spanning Orange and Riverside counties, one of the most expensive and volatile races in the 2026 midterms.
When it comes to voter registration, Republicans hold an advantage in this district: 39.68% of the 522,939 registered voters are Republicans, while 31.2% are Democrats and 21.24% are no party preference voters, from the California secretary of state shows.
Still, despite the number of safe GOP voters, the state of the country has shifted since the primary election — and not necessarily in a way that a candidate’s link to Trump is a good thing, said Jorge Flores, a Los Angeles-based public affairs consultant and veteran campaign strategist.
“It’s funny. In the primary, everyone was trying to figure out how to align themselves with Trump. In the general, since the summer and early fall — as the (Iran) war has become more unpopular, as gas prices continue to climb, the impacts of the Big Beautiful Bill are becoming more apparent — things have gotten even harder since the primary,” said Flores, who advised independent candidate Nina Linh in the district’s primary contest.
“There is only one person you can sort of tie all that back to: Trump. And people are trying to figure out how to distance themselves from him in some capacity,” Flores added, referring to candidates in the 2026 midterms.
Brandon Rosner, a Wisconsin Republican with the Americans 4 Security PAC, declined to comment when reached for this story and did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.
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The PAC has spent more than $6 million so far this year through Oct. 14, according to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission.
It has spent more than $3 million to oppose Kim and another $250,000 to support Calvert, independent expenditures for the PAC show. Independent expenditures are money spent to support or oppose a candidate, but the funds do not directly go to and are not spent by the candidate.
Kim, from Anaheim Hills, has raised nearly $10 million this year and has spent more than $9.7 million, according to the latest FEC filings.
Calvert, meanwhile, has raised nearly $7 million and has spent more than $5.4 million, FEC records show.
CFF, a PAC that opposes Calvert, has spent nearly $575,000 this year to counter the congressman from Corona, according to FEC records.
Both Calvert and Kim advanced in the June primary to come head-to-head in the general, staving off a challenge from third-place finisher Democrat Esther Kim-Varet.
Trump did not endorse in the primary and so far has not weighed in on the general election fight between the two, either. He has, in the past, praised both Calvert and Kim at times.
In the primary, Calvert and Kim both said they had the president’s back the most. And they both accused each other of being secretly liberal or not MAGA enough.
But in the general election, messaging strategy is different, political experts have said. The candidates must not only motivate their own base of GOP voters, but also successfully reach beyond their voters.
That was evident, experts said, in one mailer sent from a group aligned with the anti-Calvert CFF PAC a few months ago. It touted Kim as the candidate who would deliver “bipartisan results for California families.”
And that’s where a mailer like the recent ones from the pro-Calvert PAC, attaching Kim to Trump, comes in, said Schnur.
“It’s likely that many of these voters didn’t pay close attention in the primary, and they wouldn’t have much knowledge of Calvert’s own past,” he said.
But Flores thinks the candidates’ brand identities will matter more in this district. And if that’s the case, it’s Calvert, who has been in Congress since 1993, who has the upper hand. (Kim, in comparison, has served in the House since 2021.)
“The best thing Ken Calvert has going for him is longevity,” Flores said, noting that Republican voters in the district are already familiar with him, which brings about a certain level of trust.
Kim’s campaign, though, brushed off the recent mailers from the PAC supporting Calvert.
“This is just the latest sign of desperation from a corrupt politician like Ken Calvert, who has been in Washington since the early days of dial-up internet with nothing to show for it,” said Chris Pack, the campaign manager for Kim’s campaign. “He’s telling Republican voters that Young isn’t Republican enough and Democratic voters that she’s too MAGA. Clearly, he’s desperate, delusional, and has nothing else to run on after 30+ years in Washington.”
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A spokesperson for Calvert’s campaign declined to comment.
Voting is already underway in California. Election Day is Nov. 3.
Staff writer Charlie Borla contributed to this report.