The $254,000 that Chispa spent in this year’s most expensive U.S. House race barely registers as a drop in the proverbial bucket.

The money, which the Santa Ana-based nonprofit used to campaign for Democrat Derek Tran against two-term Republican incumbent Michelle Steel in the 45th District, represents just 0.6% of the more than $46 million raised by the candidates and independent expenditure committees.

Yet Chispa’s quarter-million-and-change — which paid for mailers, digital ads, phone bankers and canvassers targeting Latino voters in a district that swings from Brea to southern Los Angeles County and ends in Little Saigon — might prove one of the most consequential sums dropped in Orange County politics in decades.

If Tran wins the incredibly tight race — he’s 480 votes ahead of Steel as of this columna’s publication — the first-time candidate will have clawed back a House seat for the Democrats, leaving the once redoubtably red county with one GOP congressmember.

Chispa, founded in 2017 to train young Latinos to push for progressive change, will have succeeded outside its base for the first time, showing that O.C. is entering a new political era — despite MAGA’s takeover of Washington.

In the 24 years I’ve written about my birthplace, I’ve seen local Latino activists fundamentally transform their attitude toward electoral politics. Those I came of age with largely eschewed politics, out of a sense of progressive purity. But they eventually followed the lead of a new generation that pushed elected officials to take up causes like immigrant rights and government transparency.

Now, I’m seeing the latest batch of do-gooders help on successful campaigns or even run for office themselves. Most of this evolution has happened in Santa Ana, which has shifted from a city run by centrist Democrat Latinos to a progressive beacon with a City Council that is as apt to call for a bilateral cease-fire in Palestine and Israel as to declare itself a sanctuary city.

O.C. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento thought Chispa was an “unassembled group of young people” when he served on the Santa Ana City Council last decade. But he was impressed enough with their advocacy on matters like police reform and rent control to use their help on his successful 2020 mayoral campaign and supervisorial run two years later.

“They started with policy,” said Sarmiento, who donated $5,000 to Chispa’s eponymous PAC. “Then they realized they could help candidates. They realized they had trust in the community because they had delivered on big promises.”

Tran’s team declined to comment about Chispa’s efforts in the 45th, which wasn’t surprising: Political campaigns aren’t allowed to communicate with independent expenditure committees. But Chispa’s involvement in the race shows that santaneros can take their strategies outside their hometown — and win.

I caught up with four staffers — founder and executive director Hairo Cortes, operations director Jennifer Rojas, policy director Boomer Vicente and communications director Hector Bustos — earlier this week. They’re such kids that both Vicente and Bustos deadpanned “before my time” when I asked about Santa Ana council races from 20 years ago.

Their youth, however, belies resumes worthy of a political machine.

The 32-year-old Cortes cut his teeth organizing undocumented youth like himself soon after graduating from Santa Ana High. Vicente, 29, ran for an Assembly seat in 2022, while Bustos — the youngest at 25 — won his Santa Ana Unified school board seat that year. Rojas, also 32, was an ACLU organizer for seven years before joining them in 2023.

Chispa — which means “spark” in Spanish and is also the name of a popular dating app for Latinos — registered as a 501(c)(4), unlike other prominent O.C. progressive nonprofits. That allows the group to endorse candidates and organize independent expenditures. Cortes said he had political power in mind after the Santa Ana police union began to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each election cycle to put their favored candidates on the City Council.

“We realized that we couldn’t keep doing policy work only for one election to roll back everything we had worked on,” he said.

Progressives took over the Santa Ana City Council and school board in 2022, thanks in part to Chispa and other groups. Last year, that alliance helped Councilmember Jessie Lopez defeat a recall attempt where she was outspent 8-1. Chispa leaders were planning to focus on Santa Ana again — until the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

“We were texting on a group thread,” Cortes said with a bitter laugh. “’This is a disaster, this is bad, we’re f—.’”

He knew Orange County had several tight congressional races that could determine control of Congress. So he talked to allies about whether Chispa should wade into those face-offs. One person he hit up was Mehran Khodabandeh, development director for the Working Families Party’s California chapter and a longtime political strategist. Khodabandeh suggested that Chispa create a super PAC and focus on one race.

“I told Hairo, ‘Y’all have the bona fides and you have the trust of your community, so why don’t you do this?’” Khodabandeh said. “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.”

Chispa focused on the 45th because it bordered Santa Ana, and Rep. Steel — who was born in South Korea — had long been a vocal critic of illegal immigration. They saw that Latinos were 30% of the district’s population yet ignored by both Steel and Democrats. Cortes and his colleagues had never been involved with a political action committee, so they leaned on people like Khodabandeh for advice.

I asked the four if creating a super PAC — long decried by good government types as befouling democracy — violated their values.

“We know it’s dirty,” Vicente said. “But we realized that in order to play this game, we need to do these [independent expenditures].”

“Without us engaging in that fundraising, we are not harnessing the same level of power that our opponents have been driving,” Rojas added.

“And it’s going to happen with or without us,” Bustos concluded.

Santa Ana Unified School District trustee and Chispa communications director Hector Bustos poses for a portrait in Santa Ana. He and other members of the nonprofit helped bring out the Latino vote for Democrat Derek Tran in his campaign for the 45th congressional district seat held by Republican Michelle Steel.

(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)

They did most of the work from home — “We’re young. We don’t need to be in an office,” Cortes cracked — and coordinated with some of the other PACs that poured millions of dollars to support Tran against Steel. Connections with local activists allowed them to easily find volunteers. But Chispa quickly realized they had to adapt to their new terrain, Vicente said.

In previous Santa Ana campaigns, “we talked about all the good stuff we had done,” Vicente said. “For the 45th, we talked about what Derek could do. The issues were different, too. In Santa Ana, you talk police accountability. In the 45th, drug pricing was important.”

Do they think Chispa made a difference?

Vicente 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.

“Derek cannot win without the Latino vote,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Those are folks that we talked to.”

“All of the orgs on the ground played a big role in where we’re at,” Rojas acknowledged. “But considering how small the margins are, our work plays a role in that.”

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

After I talked to the chispitas, I drove to the offices of Unite Here Local 11 in Garden Grove, which also helped Tran. Inside a gazebo, Chispa field program director Joesé Hernández gave a pep talk to his team of canvassers, who were going to “cure” votes — visit people whose ballots were initially disqualified to let them know they could fix the error.

Hernández is a veteran of Santa Ana’s activist scene, working on local campaigns and as Orange County co-regional director for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential run. I first met him early last decade, when he was part of Occupy Santa Ana and a volunteer for the Santa Ana-based nonprofit El Centro Cultural de México.

“The idea to kick out money out of politics was naive,” the 40-year-old told me earlier that day. “That’s just not the reality that we exist in, and it’s not going away anytime soon. So we come into a gunfight with fists? No, we need to come in with enough money to fight.”

Hernández was less pugilistic in front of the canvassers.

“The 45th was going to come down to Latino engagement,” he told the five Latinas, some of whom had come from as far away as Perris. They snacked on chips and sipped on coffee to warm up in the evening chill. “A lot of people we spoke to had never been approached by any politician. There was extreme cynicism. But we reached out.”

The women nodded.

“That’s the cool thing about this team,” Hernández said, smiling. “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.”

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., took aim at Secretary of State Antony Blinken after it was reported that the State Department held therapy sessions for employees who were upset by President-elect Trump’s election victory.

“I am concerned that the Department is catering to federal employees who are personally devastated by the normal functioning of American democracy through the provision of government-funded mental health counseling because Kamala Harris was not elected President of the United States,” Issa said in a letter to Blinken last week.

The letter comes after a Free Beacon report earlier this month that detailed two alleged therapy sessions that were held at the State Department after Trump’s victory, with sources telling the outlet that one such instance amounted to an information “cry session.”

TRUMP BRINGS BACK FORMER AIDE SEBASTIAN GORKA, EX-STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ALEX WONG TO SERVE IN ADMIN

In another instance, an email went out to agency employees and touted a separate  “insightful webinar where we delve into effective stress management techniques to help you navigate these challenging times” after Trump’s victory, according to the report.

“Change is a constant in our lives, but it can often bring about stress and uncertainty,” the email said. “Join us for an insightful webinar where we delve into effective stress management techniques to help you navigate these challenging times. This session will provide tips and practical strategies for managing stress and maintaining your well being.”

In his letter to Blinken, Issa argued that the reported sessions were “disturbing” and that “nonpartisan government officials” should not be suffering a “personal meltdown over the result of a free and fair election.”

President-elect Trump at a campaign event in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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While the Republican lawmaker acknowledged that the mental health of the agency’s employees was important, he questioned the use of taxpayer dollars to counsel those upset about the election, demanding answers on how many sessions have been conducted, how many more are planned, and how much the sessions are costing the department.

Issa also raised fears that the sessions could also call into question the willingness of some of the State Department’s employees to carry out Trump’s new vision for the agency.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a ceremony on May 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

“The mere fact that the Department is hosting these sessions raises significant questions about the willingness of its personnel to implement the lawful policy priorities that the American people elected President Trump to pursue and implement,” the letter said. “The Trump Administration has a mandate for wholesale change in the foreign policy arena, and if foreign service officers cannot follow through on the American people’s preferences, they should resign and seek a political appointment in the next Democrat administration.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Last week in Columbus, Ohio, a dozen or so people marched through the city waving Nazi flags and yelling racial epithets.

Disturbing, to be sure, and a grim sign of the times.

But almost as troubling was the reaction from CNN anchor Dana Bash. After airing a video of the march on Monday’s edition of “Inside Politics,” she said it was unclear “which side of the aisle” these white nationalists came from.

“A group of neo-Nazis paraded through that city wearing, waving swastikas, covering their faces,” Bash said during the segment with Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio). “This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened in Ohio in particular. And, of course, it’s continuing to spread. We don’t know what side of the aisle this comes from. I mean, typically neo-Nazis are from the far right,” she said before noting that Landsman, who is Jewish, had “far left” protests outside his house.

Conflating neo-Nazis with protesters for Palestinian human rights is in itself problematic, but blurring the hard right’s direct connection to white nationalism with “let’s be fair to both sides” comments was inexcusable.

Basic rule: Nazis should never be given the benefit of the doubt, or any leeway for that matter. Neither should the political movements that empower them.

Bash wasn’t the only media personality to shy away from condemning the people and parties that embolden fascism. “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, frequent critics of Donald Trump, revealed Monday that they’d recently visited the president-elect and members of his team at Mar-a-Lago to “restart communications.”

Brzezinski preempted questions about their decision with another question: “For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn’t we?”

By the time the “Daily Show” aired that evening, host Jon Stewart had an answer: “Uh, because you said he was Hitler.”

The about-face of news anchors who as recently as last month voiced concerns about the future of the country under a second Trump term sparked plenty of criticism. Ratings plunged after the segment, with some detractors accusing the couple of obeying the president-elect in advance for fear of retaliation once he’s back in the White House. If true, their concern wouldn’t be unfounded. Trump has waged war on the media from Day One, referring to them often as “fake,” “crooked” and an “enemy of the state.”

I’d like to believe that these media figures aren’t folding like cheap suits, but maybe that’s wishful thinking. There’s a lot of that going around these days. Democratic leaders have been throwing pennies in a well since 2016, repeating the mantra, “This is not who we are. This is not who we are.” At least it put a rosier sheen on the rising tide of bigotry and violence unleashed by MAGA.

Aspirational thinking is healthy and admirable, but not in all cases. And in this case, it’s also not particularly accurate, because as the election results attest, this is who we are. Trump’s retribution approach resonated more with voters than Kamala Harris’ promises of a united future. Trump voters may not have fully agreed with his torrent of hate speech, “Access Hollywood” grab ‘em comments or labeling of fellow Americans as “the enemy within,” but they also weren’t bothered enough by it all to not vote for him.

And let me be clear, I’m not conflating the majority of Trump voters with those idiots marching in Ohio. What I am saying is that when news personalities like Bash and the “Morning Joe” crew operate on the unspoken premise that there are two sides to the story and we should give fascism a chance, it serves no one but the aspiring strongman.

Ignoring the obvious seemed to be what Bash was doing. But her viewers probably could discern which side those neo-Nazis were aligned with when they paraded through Columbus.

Journalists across social media were immediately on the case. Nick Martin, who runs the Informant, a publication covering hate and extremism in the U.S., posted a response to her comments. It was a selfie of a founder of the neo-Nazi groups in question, taken at a Trump rally.

Other examples of MAGA’s ties with white power were so fresh they were reported in the same news cycle.

Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, was one of 12 National Guard members removed from security duty for President Biden’s 2021 inauguration over his potential extremist ties. Hegseth has tattoos associated with white nationalist movements, including a symbol popular with Christian nationalists referred to as a Jerusalem cross.

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly parroted propaganda used in Nazi Germany when pledging to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

Commentary in the Hill revealed that when he spoke that line at a 2023 rally in New Hampshire, he barely modified from its original 1930s Nazi form. The previous year he dined with prominent white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.

And we all remember when during his first term he defended violent white nationalists who marched in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, saying they included “some very fine people.”

Trump wants you to believe that. But we don’t have to. It’s time we admitted that we aren’t all that good, and that we need to be better.