This East Bay Elected Official Is a Delegate at the Republican National Convention

Jeff Wang is a rare sight at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee: an elected official from the liberal Bay Area.

Wang is the vice mayor of Union City in the East Bay. He’s also one of California’s 169 Republican delegates, who voted on Monday evening to officially nominate Donald Trump for president. In an interview with KQED, Wang said he’s shown voters his party activism can exist apart from his civic leadership.

“In the local level, they don’t care about the parties,” Wang said. “They’re smart people, they’re looking for who can help them.”

Council members don’t run as members of a political party, so Wang didn’t appear on the ballot as a Republican when he won his council seat in 2022, becoming the city’s first Chinese-American council member. That’s not to say Wang hasn’t received some raised eyebrows from Union City voters, who routinely elect Democrats for Congress and the state Legislature.

“People say, ‘Oh, you’re a Trump supporter?’ I say, ‘I’m not denying that, yes. What’s the problem?’” Wang said.

His answer to voters: I’m not looking to change your mind about national politics.

“Tell me, what are the policies at the local [level], and if you don’t like it?” Wang added. “Because in the local [level], I don’t need to be the Republican, I don’t need to be the Trump.”

Wang’s journey to elected office began on July 4, 1984, when he arrived in America from Shanghai, as he recalled, “with only $40 and two suitcases.”

Though Wang landed in San Francisco, he soon headed to Madison, Wisconsin, where he would eventually receive a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at the University of Wisconsin.

That makes the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee something of a homecoming for Wang, a return to the place where he first fostered his conservative politics.

“When I was in the Midwest, I was looking for my family values, and so I’m very conservative, very like the Republicans,” Wang remembered. “I registered Republican in 1989 — never changed.”

Wang has deepened his involvement with the party and conservative politics since. He became an active voice in opposition to race-based admission in colleges and universities around the country, and he campaigned against a 2020 ballot measure that would have overturned California’s ban on affirmative action.

He also volunteered with the Election Integrity Project California, a conservative nonprofit that has opposed state legislation to expand vote-by-mail and extend voting rights in California — such as proposals to extend suffrage to Californians on parole and some 17-year-olds.

Closer to home, Wang has taken up less controversial pursuits. He won a seat on the New Haven Unified School Board in 2016, led a local rotary club and served on an Alameda County commission which oversees and promotes historical preservation activities in the county.

When asked what difference the result of the presidential election will make for residents of Union City, Wang said he’s just focused on encouraging his constituents to get to the polls.

“Especially for 2024, I will ask, especially for the immigrants: number one, get registered,” he said. “Second, come to vote, no matter which party you vote for.”