# United States Representative, District 46 Compare records and positions simply between Lou Correa or David Pan for United States Representative, District 46 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives (2-year term). - Jurisdiction: Federal - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/us-rep-46 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 24, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 84 out of 100 (Strong), across 6 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Lou Correa** — United States Congressmember · Democratic - **David Pan** — Professor · Republican This is an open seat. Democrat Lou Correa led the June 2 primary with an outright majority at 51.9% and Republican David Pan took 32.9%. The district covers Santa Ana and part of central Orange County. The winner holds one of 435 seats in the U.S. House for a two-year term. A member introduces bills, sits on committees that shape federal legislation, votes on the federal budget and on war powers, and handles casework between constituents and federal agencies. Because this seat is open, whoever wins starts at the bottom of the seniority ladder. The leading candidate took a majority outright in June, which in an open seat usually means the party's coalition consolidated early. His funding is majority-committee, the less common balance in this part of the ballot. Weigh that against an opponent running on about six percent of the money. ## Lou Correa Lou Correa has spent decades in Orange County government, moving from the state Assembly's 69th District to the state Senate's 34th District to a seat on the county Board of Supervisors, and has represented Orange County in the U.S. House (campaign site). He does not currently hold this particular, redrawn seat. His campaign describes his approach as focused on "people, not playing partisan games" and says he is "known for getting things done" (campaign site). Because California's 2025 redistricting redrew this district, any seniority he earned in his earlier House term would not carry forward if he wins it. He promises to keep helping Orange County residents "build better lives" and reach middle-class stability, with an emphasis on practical, collaborative problem-solving over partisan positioning (campaign site). **Strengths:** Decades of elected experience across four levels of California government, and a majority win in a five-candidate primary. **Trade-offs:** A prior House term's seniority resets in this redrawn district, and little independent reporting on this specific race turned up. **Keep in mind:** This is a long record to weigh against a first-time challenger, and how much a comeback bid should count is a judgment call. ## David Pan David Pan was born in the Chicago area to parents who immigrated from Taiwan, and studied at Stanford and Columbia before earning a graduate degree (campaign site). He has been a Professor of German at UC Irvine since 2006, after earlier posts at Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford, and Pennsylvania State University, and worked as a management consultant at McKinsey and Company in Los Angeles. From 2019 to 2020 he served on the U.S. State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights. Pan says he is running because "the education establishment has strayed away from the values of merit and equality of opportunity" (campaign site). He has not held elected office, so the record voters can weigh is his three decades in academia and consulting rather than a voting history. He promises "school choice for parents" through charter schools and vouchers, new accountability rules for university research funding, and more police recruitment (campaign site). On the safety net, he proposes phasing out current welfare and entitlement programs in favor of a universal basic income paid partly in cash and partly as a health voucher, and he would require health care providers to post procedure prices. **Strengths:** Three decades in academia and consulting, and a detailed platform on education, welfare, and health policy. **Trade-offs:** No record in elected office, and he faces a primary winner who cleared a majority outright. **Keep in mind:** His universal basic income proposal is a real break from standard party positions on welfare and worth reading in full. ## Record in office This is an open seat: no candidate on the November ballot currently serves in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress, so there is no legislative record to compare here. These records cover only those offices. ## Financial info - **Lou Correa** — $1,226,104 raised (Individuals: $417,355; PACs & committees: $666,283) - **David Pan** — $80,726 raised (Individuals: $70,667; PACs & committees: $250; Self-funding: $9,000) Total raised is all receipts for the 2026 cycle; the breakdown lists direct contributions, so the pieces can sum below the total. Figures are FEC filings through June 30, 2026, per the FEC bulk campaign-finance summaries, retrieved 2026-09-21. ## Review notes - Lou Correa and David Pan for Congress may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources. ## Sources 1. [CA Secretary of State — Statement of Vote, June 2, 2026 primary (certified 2026-07-10)](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/primary-election-june-2-2026/statement-vote) 2. [Ballotpedia — June 2026 California primary](https://ballotpedia.org) 3. [Lou Correa — campaign site (biography and stated approach)](https://www.loucorrea.com/) 4. [David Pan for Congress — campaign site (biography and issues pages)](https://www.davidpan4congress.com/) 5. [congress-legislators — current members of Congress (unitedstates project)](https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-current.json) 6. [FEC — 2026 House & Senate current-campaign financial summaries (bulk data)](https://www.fec.gov/files/bulk-downloads/2026/webl26.zip) ## The rest of the ballot United States Representative, District 46 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "United States Representative, District 46 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/us-rep-46 (sources last retrieved September 24, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.