Irvine Mayor to Square Off with Incumbent

After coming in second Tuesday, Sukhee Kang has his sights set on the November election.

The Irvine mayor is running as a Democrat for a U.S. congressional seat in the heavily-Republican District 45 against incumbent .

Kang took 33.3 percent of the vote, while Campbell took 51 percent, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

Kang said to save money he relied on volunteer support for the primary, "especially Laguna Woods volunteer seniors who called so many voters on (his) behalf."

Kang said he'll spend the next five months walking precincts and getting to know voters outside of Irvine.

"I’m going to just talk to voters one at a time," he said, estimating that he's canvassed 40,000 houses in past elections. “It’s going to be a campaign like you’ve never seen before.”

He said he'll run on his performance on the Irvine city council.

Over the last four years, "Irvine was able to balance its budget every year," Kang said. "As mayor I made a special effort to make sure we stay afloat and make sure we don’t cut any core services to the community.”

The country's first Korean-American mayor said he sees himself as a Washington outsider who will put away partisan politics for the sake of accomplishing sound policy.