Latest Vang-Matsui clash: Super PAC spending on long-shot Republican candidate
A longtime U.S. representative and the progressive trying to unseat her are exchanging blows in the final few days before the California primary election. Both launched accusations that the other is steering PAC money in underhanded ways.
Mai Vang, a Sacramento city councilmember, has openly criticized opponent Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, for “elevating” a Republican candidate in recent weeks, pointing to a blog post on her campaign site which describes Zachariah Wooden as having a “record of serving the community” and “fighting to advance Trump’s policies.”
Vang’s supporters, including members of the California Working Families Party and the California Nurses Association, have accused Matsui of directing a super PAC to spend $119,000 to boost Wooden.
Wooden is a college student a Sac State. Previous to the donation from the Inclusion PAC, Wooden had not raised any money according to Federal Election Commission nor does he have an active campaign website.
Vang’s supporters said the committee is connected to Matsui because Inclusion PAC’s only listed donor, UA Local 447 PAC, gave $5,000 to Matsui in June 2025, per Axios reporter Andrew Solender. The only other candidate the PAC has supported in 2026 has been Thien Ho in California’s 6th District.
On Friday morning, Vang supporters gathered outside of Matsui’s district office in downtown Sacramento to call on her to disavow the PAC’s spending and answer for her campaign’s alleged promotion of Wooden.
“Why is it that our sitting Congress member is dedicated to uplifting the opposition party?” said Moiz Mir of Sunrise Movement Sacramento. “It is a shame. It is a disgrace. It is a betrayal.”
Wooden’s long-shot campaign has become the subject of opposition independent expenditure spending. The Rising Tide Collective — which is supporting progressive U.S. House candidates in San Francisco and Los Angeles — has spent $200,000 to fight Wooden’s congressional bid.
Matsui campaign criticizes super PAC spending for Vang
The Matsui campaign denied allegations they are advocating for the young conservative and said that the post on their media page is to show “what’s at stake with MAGA Republicans like Zachariah Wooden.”
Matsui campaign strategist Roger Salazar clapped back against the allegations of shady PAC spending Friday, pointing to super PAC spending on Vang’s behalf.
“Mai Vang’s supporters, who have spent more than $630,000 in out-of-state super PAC money on purely negative attacks at Vang’s explicit direction, have no standing to lecture anyone about money in politics,” Salazar said in a statement. “(Matsui) is focused on what matters: Winning back the House majority and holding Trump and his allies accountable.”
Federal Election Commission filings show that the Working Families Party and Justice Democrats PACs have spent a collective $140,000 on digital ads opposing Matsui. Vang has also benefited from around $515,000 in spending from these PACs and another associated with the country’s largest nursing union.
In criticizing Matsui’s spotlight on Wooden, Vang’s campaign said candidates often use their media page to steer PAC spending without outright coordination from the campaigns.
Vang’s own media page says that voters need to see “purely negative messaging against (Matsui).”
Latest in bitter back-and-forth
The sour words about each candidate’s PAC connections are only the latest in a bitter back-and-forth between the two Democrat women. Earlier this month, Matsui’s campaign came after Vang for taking corporate donations from Sacramento-area businesses during her city council campaigns, implying that Vang’s vows to not accept money from corporate PACs in her congressional bid is hypocritical.
In response, Vang defended these donations, telling The Bee that she redirected campaign contributions to scholarships for high school students in her district. Former Sacramento City Unified School District board president Jay Hansen, who has been critical of Vang’s performance as a school board trustee and city councilmember, filed an ethics complaint against her alleging that she either did not issue these donations or did not properly record them. He said he would withdraw the complaint after Bee reporting found records of the donations.
Vang also came under fire in conservative news outlets recently for her longtime practice of abstaining from the Pledge of Allegiance and later linked those articles to Matsui’s alleged effort to boost Wooden.
The 7th District encompasses El Dorado Hills and Placerville to the north to Lodi and Linden to the south. Other major areas in the district include Galt, Elk Grove and several capital region neighborhoods including Campus Commons, Oak Park, south Sacramento and the city’s downtown core.
Proposition 50, a voter-approved initiative that redrew California’s congressional boundaries to favor Democrats, eliminated West Sacramento, Lemon Hill, Florin, East Sacramento and Isleton from the district.
