Democratic Rep. Ami Bera is running again. Have Republicans given up trying to unseat him?
California’s 7th Congressional District was once a key battleground seat for Republicans.
Just a few years ago, the seat held by Democratic Rep. Ami Bera was actively targeted by the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The district was home to the country’s most expensive congressional race in 2014.
Two years later, the Elk Grove Democrat edged out Republican Sheriff Scott Jones with 51.2 percent of the vote, outspending Jones 3-to-1.
But national GOP efforts to flip the seat now seem to be all but forgotten.
It’s a notable turnaround for the Sacramento district that includes the increasingly Democratic suburban cities of Elk Grove, Citrus Heights, Rancho Cordova and Folsom.
During the last midterm election, Republican challenger Andrew Grant, lost with about 45 percent of the vote. Grant raised about $566,000 during his race, compared to the roughly $2.96 million raised by Bera.
Bera, running for his fifth term, has four challengers this primary season, none of whom have received significant financial support from their respective parties. Jeff Burdick is running as a Democrat, Buzz Patterson and Jon Ivy as Republicans, and Chris Richardson as a Green Party candidate. The National Republican Congressional Committee has not targeted the seat for this year’s election.
Cook Political Report, an independent non-partisan group that analyzes elections and campaigns, rated the race as “likely” to remain in Democratic control this year. Inside Elections and CQ Roll Call, another national forecaster, rated the seat “solid Democratic,” indicating the race won’t be competitive.
Sacramento County Republican Party Chairwoman Betsy Mahan lamented the party’s struggles in a November blog post, writing, “Andrew Grant couldn’t have worked harder, or been a better prospective Congressman, but voters were not listening and the money to run a proper campaign was not there.”
In particular, Mahan criticized Ivy, who has promoted himself as a “progressive Republican” pushing for universal healthcare, marijuana legalization, raising the federal minimum wage and adopting the framework of the Green New Deal. Ivy said he has been a no-party preference, Democratic and Libertarian voter at various points in his life.
“We have a delusional, newly registered Republican candidate, who doesn’t live in the district, and thinks he’s going to convince Republicans to support the socialistic policies of Bernie Sanders. No kidding,” Mahan wrote, later referring to Ivy as “Poison Ivy.”
“I am looking forward to more Republican candidates (real ones..) getting into the race to represent our principles and not play games with the election,” she continued. The local party endorsed Patterson, a former White House military aide under President Bill Clinton, for the seat.
But Michael Madrid, GOP consultant and former political director of the California Republican Party, said attitudes like that are part of the reason the Republican Party has continued to lose ground in the state.
To be competitive again, Madrid said, the party must evolve, and renounce President Donald Trump, who Madrid called “anthrax to the Republican brand,” particularly for suburban voters.
“This is not rural Northern California or the deserts. This is a suburban community. The Republican party collapsed in suburbia because of Donald Trump,” Madrid said. “There’s no magic set of issues to get around the elephant in the room.”
“There’s not enough money, not enough volunteers, not enough door knockers, not enough anything to move the needle when you run into that kind of negative brand,” he said.
Ivy said he knows some of his ideas are “not in line with where the Republican Party is today, but that kind of is the point.”
“We need to build a Republican Party that can talk to its neighbors without yelling at each other,” Ivy said. “I just think we need to be talking about progress and an inspirational message people can get behind.”
As of October 2019, about 38 percent of the district’s registered voters are listed as Democrats, and about 30 percent as Republicans, according to California Secretary of State records.
Bera told the Elk Grove Citizen this week that people should vote for him based on his record: “I’ve been very accessible. My record (is) of trying to be present and serve the constituents and the folks in Elk Grove, understanding the issues and really being involved in this community,” he told the paper.
To date, Bera has raised more than $996,000 for the current race, according to Federal Election Commission records. Patterson has raised just under $30,000. Burdick and Ivy have raised about $8,300 and $8,100 respectively.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.