Young Democrats are challenging incumbents in California

from Maya S. MillerCalMatters

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California’s battleground states may get the lion’s share of national attention for their role in deciding which party controls the lower house of Congress.

But in a handful of deep-blue California districts, an intra-party battle is brewing over the future of the Democratic Party in the wake of dismal losses in last year’s presidential race.

In Sacramento, Napa County and Los Angeles, three younger challengers say Democrats need to give voters fresh faces with bold new ideas to energize the party’s base, instead of aging incumbents rooted more in Washington inner culture than in their districts.

“Status quo politics will not protect our communities,” said Sacramento City Councilwoman Mai Wang, 40, who is running against 10-term Rep. Doris Matsui, 81. “We need leaders who can meet the moment. And that’s why I decided to get in the ring.”

Wang is the first major primary challenge Matsui has faced in the two decades since the congresswoman won her late husband’s seat in 2005. Former Rep. Bob Matsui held the seat for 26 years before that.

Two other top California congressional Democrats have also drawn primary challengers. Congressman Mike Thompson, 74, of Napa County, a Vietnam veteran running for his 15th term, is being challenged by Eric Jones, 34, a former capitalist from San Francisco.

And further south, former Obama and Biden White House climate aide Jake Levin, 41, is challenging Congressman Brad Sherman, 71, of Los Angeles, who is running for his 16th term. All three challengers have vowed not to take corporate money from PACs, as their incumbent opponents do.

In California and across the country, younger challengers say Democrats holding office in safe districts take their seats for granted because they so rarely receive serious challenges. This false sense of security, Wang said, leads to a lack of contact with members who have less incentive to show up in their districts and talk to constituents.

Part of embracing the moment, Wang argues, means taking “bold and courageous” positions on important issues, such as speaking out strongly against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Wang said he wants Matsui to more strongly condemn the immigration raids that have torn apart families in Sacramento and violated residents’ due process rights. She was disappointed that Matsui’s revelations focused on the unsanitary conditions at the John E. Moss federal building, where advocates said detainees were kept without access to proper sanitation, rather than on family separation and indiscriminate detention.

“In the last few months, we’ve had neighbors, people in our community, who have been kidnapped by ICE, taken by ICE, and Doris has not spoken out against it at all,” Wang said. “And especially as someone who was born in the internment camps, I would have thought that she would be on the front lines to speak out on the issues.”

Matsui was born in the Poston internment camp in Arizona, where her parents were imprisoned during World War II.

“This is nonsense,” said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for Matsui’s campaign, noting local news about Matsui’s statement against an immigration raid of Home Depot in South Sacramento and her access attempt ICE detention center. “She should be watching the news.”

Matsui in October hosted a rare in-person forum only after constituents spent months urging her to meet with them. Angry Sacramentans also hosted the town hall with an empty chair in March to highlight Matsui’s absence, even two weeks after House Democrats made a national blitz in Republican districts to make a similar point.

Some senior leaders stick around

Calls for a generational shift within the Democratic Party, while not new, have increased significantly as the party works to find its footing after 2024. The dynamic first played out in internal House leadership races earlier this year, where younger members such as Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach leapfrogged senior colleagues to lead powerful committees.

Congressman Thompson, Matsui’s congressional colleague in neighboring Napa County, said his constituents have publicly stopped him and asked him to run again.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people say to me, ‘I really hope you stay.’ We need you now more than ever,” Thompson told CalMatters. “No one is forcing me to retire. No one guessed that I had been there too long. And everyone knows that I’m not only capable, but I’m in good shape.”

In Sacramento, Wang, the oldest of 16 children whose Hmong parents came to the United States as refugees, said he has the greatest respect for Matsui and their long history of service.

Still, she urged Matsui to follow the lead of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — who announced last month that he will retire next year and not seek re-election to a 21st term in Congress – and Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez of New York, who told The New York Times that “now is the right time to step back and allow a new generation of leaders to step forward.”

But Matsui remains adamant she has much more work to do in Congress, such as overseeing the groundbreaking for Sacramento’s new I Street Bridge and securing federal funds for flood prevention and wildfire recovery, and said she will stay in the race. She emphasized that the deep relationships she has built over 20 years in Washington are critical to her ability to deliver on these projects.

“It’s important not only to have advocates, but also people who understand that once you’re in Congress, you also have to learn how to govern,” Matsui said. “We can’t just throw everything out and start over.”

As for Wang’s intra-party primary challenge, Matsui said anyone is “absolutely free” to run against her at any time. “I’m fine with that. That’s our democracy. That’s America.”

But she insisted her record would reinforce to voters how hard she works.

“I show up every day working for Sacramento,” Matsui said, “whether it’s in Sacramento or D.C.”

The Risk of Dem-on-Dem Challenges

One risk of electing veterans to Congress is the loss of institutional wisdom, said Gail Kaufman, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist, especially as the Trump administration tests the limits of the law and the limits of power.

“Especially when you’re up against things like these that we’re not familiar with, breaking every norm you can imagine,” Kaufman said, “having some of those people around is not a bad thing.”

Even among younger Democrats, there is no broad consensus that incumbents are out and young challengers are automatically in. Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats, echoed Kaufman’s point that a blanket policy of “voting out all incumbents over a certain age” could be counterproductive.

Although the Young Democrats have yet to endorse anyone in the congressional race, Cragin said he is personally conflicted about who to endorse.

“I don’t know who I’m going to vote for,” Cragin said. “It’s nice to have a strong member right now, but there’s also a part of me that wants to make sure we’re supporting our younger members. And Councilmember Mai Wang is a very strong contender. She’s very community-oriented.”

Those who support intra-democratic challenges argue that they stimulate important dialogue and force candidates to clearly articulate their ideas and earn the trust of voters, rather than taking their support for granted. Incumbent Democrats across the country could benefit from primary challenges as they search for the party’s soul, said Alex Niles, vice president of political affairs for the Sacramento County Young Democrats.

“We have to take stock and figure out what does it mean to be a Democrat? What do we stand for? What do the people want and who do we serve?” Niles said.

“The round robin in blue districts is hurting our ability to win swing districts.”

U.S. Representative Brad Sherman of Los Angeles

Not surprisingly, many incumbents and political strategists disagree, denouncing intra-party primaries as a costly distraction that reduces fundraising from safe members who might otherwise support colleagues in more vulnerable districts.

“Roundabout shooting in blue districts hurts our ability to win swing districts,” Congressman Sherman said in an interview with CalMatters.

Candidates in safe districts often support their more vulnerable counterparts to gain influence in the party, whether through direct transfers of campaign funds or by urging their donors to direct their donations to more contested races. Sherman argues that competitive intra-Democratic primaries force a safe incumbent to invest more in his own re-election rather than helping to shift seats on the battleground. He repeatedly mentioned tight races in Iowa and Ohio that he sees as critical for Democrats to take back the House.

“What happens in the swing seats can determine whether America is a democracy,” Sherman said. “Democrats need to win seats in Iowa, and we can’t do that unless strong Democrats in Bel Air, Brentwood and Malibu are focused on Iowa.

“It’s hard to get people in Brentwood to focus on Iowa if there’s a real race in Brentwood.”

He added that while it matters which Democrat represents California’s 32nd Congressional District, the Los Angeles seat he has represented for nearly 30 years, it is “not life or death for our democracy.”

Sherman Levine’s challenger, who outspent the congressman in the last quarter and appears to be the favorite in a crowded field, agrees that Democrats must flip GOP-held seats to regain control of the House. But at the same time, if their party wants to keep the majority and win back disgruntled voters, Democrats must demonstrate that they are focused on lowering the cost of living and improving their quality of life, in addition to preserving democracy.

After leaving Los Angeles to pursue a career in Washington, D.C., Levin returned home earlier this year to help his mother after she lost her house – his childhood home — in the devastating Palisades fire. He was frustrated by the disjointed local and state response to recovery and hoped Sherman would step up and coordinate the response.

“The things people want to hear about and the things I try to talk about are the issues in the district,” he said. “These issues really aren’t about the makeup of the House. They aren’t about issues of power in Washington.”

Instead, Levine wants to see his member of Congress answer the kinds of questions that families like his own think about every day — “Can I afford my rent? Can my kids stay in the same neighborhood they grew up in, and even in the same state, because it’s so prohibitively expensive?”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.