Yeah Gomez for whatever reason has a tendency to attract left-wing challengers who can run up the score in the western part of the district. It's not super obvious to me why that's the case -- he seems like a pretty left-leaning politician who the left of the party would like -- but that's the pattern.
Beyond the Koreatown demographics, I think it just comes down to how renter-dominated the voter base of it, Downtown, and Pico-Union are compared to anywhere else of the city. That aligns the west together and encourages candidates from their community to run, even though its not homogenous under other demographic measurements.
