Doris Matsui’s challenger says she’s too cozy with corporate types. Does he have a shot?
Rep. Doris Matsui has won every congressional race in her Sacramento-based district since 2006 with at least 70% of the vote, and she’s running again.
But challenger Jimmy Fremgen says she’s forgotten “average Sacramentans during this pandemic.” And, he contends, she’s too cozy with corporate interests.
His bid to topple Matsui has a tough, expensive road ahead.
“Early money would be on Matsui,” said Andrew Acosta, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist.
Jacob Rubashkin, an analyst for the nonpartisan Inside Elections website, agreed. “At the moment it doesn’t look like this race has the trappings of an upset,” he said. “So many things point in the opposite direction.”
One is money. Matsui’s campaign raised $406,733 last year.
Fremgen in an October 4 press release boasted of a “fundraising haul” of “more than $25,000.” His Federal Election Commission report, which covered fundraising through September 30, reported contributions of $24,342.
His treasurer explained that Fremgen received enough money in the next few days to top $25,000. The campaign has not released a figure for all of 2021.
What’s clear, said Rubashkin, is that Fremgen “hasn’t been raising money like a credible challenger.”
Fremgen protests that too much of Matsui’s campaign money comes from corporate interests and donors outside the state and district.
“Refusing to be bankrolled by big business is a way to guarantee that I can start working on the issues that directly affect people in our region on day one, rather than having to pay back favors owed to corporate donors,” he told The Sacramento Bee.
An analysis by nonpartisan Open Secrets showed that as of September 30 in this election cycle, 76% of Matsui’s contributions came from outside her district. Overall, 65% of the money came from California donors. In 2020, it found, she got 59.8% of her money in-state.
Roger Salazar, Matsui campaign consultant, said that for the full year of 2021, 81% of the congresswoman’s donors were from California and nearly 69.6% were from the Sacramento region, defined as either from her old district, her new district (lines were redrawn this year), or within 10 miles of the district.
Fremgen noted that he hasn’t taken any corporate money. Open Secrets reported that electronics and manufacturing interests have given Matsui $26,000 this cycle, while health professionals’ political action committees have contributed $25,500.
Fremgen another Ocasio-Cortez?
Underdogs like to point to the rise of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who stunned veteran Rep. Joseph Crowley in a 2018 primary. Crowley, like Matsui, had been winning elections easily for years. He was a member of the House leadership team and widely touted as a future House speaker.
“Every challenger likes to think of themselves as AOC, but for every AOC there are three more who fell flat on their face,” Rubashkin said.
Fremgen touts his diverse resume, one that shows him knowing both his constituency and Congress. He was a senior policy aide to former Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., from 2012 to 2016. He led investigations into predatory federal aid practices and helped prepare legislation for House floor action.
He said he would “follow Rep. Cummings’ example by being deeply active in my district. In my first year, I will host workshops to support people dealing with homelessness, college affordability, housing support, and health care costs.” Cummings, who died in 2019, represented a majority-Black district centered in inner city Baltimore.
Fremgen, 33, has lived in the Sacramento-based congressional district since returning to California in 2016. Born and raised in Santa Rosa, he said he has “fond memories of the California State Railroad Museum, State Fair, concerts at the Crest Theater, River Cats baseball, and visiting the drive-in movies.”
He’s worked for Sac Brew Bike, a taproom and pub crawl in midtown since 2016, and has been working as a certificated teaching substitute in Natomas covering 6th through 12th grade.
If elected, Fremgen vowed to visit a different classroom every day, whether he’s in Washington or Sacramento, and would put his district office in “communities of high need, not in a high rise downtown.”
Matsui keeps winning elections
One of the bigger questions in this race will involve just how well voters know and like Matsui. Her husband Bob first won the seat in 1978. Shortly after he died in 2005, Doris Matsui won the seat easily.
While rarely a prominent national figure, she was an outspoken opponent of President Donald Trump as he pressed for a Muslim ban and blamed China for the COVID-19 virus. Matsui, 77, grew up in a Japanese-American family that was relocated to an internment camp during World War II. She was born in that camp.
“Everyone who was Asian American was cast in this dark light,” Matsui said of Trump’s charges. She gave emotional testimony at a House subcommittee hearing on an anti-hate crimes bill. She went to the White House to discuss the legislation with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Matsui’s reputation back home is largely as someone attuned to local needs. She bills herself on her website as the “Voice of Sacramento,” and her major initiatives have included efforts to strengthen Sacramento’s levees. In 2007 she won authority to have workers build an auxiliary spillway at Folsom Dam.
This year, the district has been redrawn so that it goes east to the Elk Grove area. Fifty-five percent of her current district is included in the new district.
Salazar said Matsui “has strong relationships” with voters in communities in the new district.
And, said Acosta, the Democratic strategist, the district is in the same media market Matsui now serves. That means, he said, “Her focus on issues like levee protection would carry over into this seat.”
Fremgen is betting that voters see things in a different way.
“Congress is a job, it is not a lifestyle, “ he said. “We hold a performance review every two years and we get to use the one thing corporations don’t have – our vote – to decide who will represent us.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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