Rep.-elect Michelle Steel (R-Calif.-48)

Date of birth: June 21, 1955
Residence: Surfside, Calif.
Occupation: Orange County Board of Supervisors chairwoman
Education: B.S., Pepperdine University; MBA, University of Southern California
Family: husband, Shawn; two daughters

Michelle Steel unseated first-term Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.) in a district that until 2018 had been a GOP stronghold in Orange County. Democrats fully swept Orange County in the midterm elections two years ago, underscoring Republicans’ weakening grip on the region. But Steel’s victory in a close race marks a reversal.

Steel, who was born in South Korea, will add to the House GOP’s thin ranks of women and will be one of the caucus’s only members of a racial minority. Del. Aumua Amata Radewagen, the American Samoa’s nonvoting delegate, caucuses with the GOP, but House Republicans do not have any voting members who are Asian American in the current session of Congress.

Before running for Congress, Steel was the first Korean American elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Prior to chairing the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Steel served on the California State Board of Equalization, which manages the state’s tax administration.

 – Cristina Marcos