Why Rep. Doris Matsui, 81, wants a 24-year-old Republican opponent in November | Opinion
For the last 20 years, Rep. Doris Matsui has been elected and re-elected to Congress not fully on merit, but because she faced candidates who couldn’t raise enough money to really challenge her, even in a primary.
This year, finally facing a real opponent in Sacramento City Council member Mai Vang, Matsui used her own campaign money to elevate an easier opponent to face in the November general election: A 24-year-old Sacramento State student named Zacariah Wooden.
Before Matsui started playing campaign tricks, Wooden had little money and even less of a chance at winning the primary. But after Matsui platformed him on her campaign website, the young man whose only experience is serving on the Associated Students at Sac State has become a serious contender, according to early election returns.
Wooden is now just 217 votes ahead of Vang — who has always been the real challenger to Matsui’s incumbency. That’s why Matsui wants nothing to do with Vang and has ducked appearing alone with her at all costs.
Before the election, Matsui pulled a dirty trick known as “redboxing” — a campaign practice by which candidates publish messages in red boxes they want outside spenders to see. They typically include strange phrases such as: “Voters need to see, read, and see on the go…”
“It’s a way of technically complying with the law while still helping super PACs craft their message,” Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor, told The Los Angeles Times. “It’s epidemic. It’s absolutely standard procedure.”
Matsui’s campaign website says Wooden, still a college student, has a “record of serving the community” and was fighting to advance President Donald Trump’s policies.
“Republican and Republican-leaning (no party preference) likely primary voters need to see, read and see on the go that Zachariah Wooden is the strongest Republican in the June 2 primary,” the website states.
It also highlighted Wooden’s endorsements among local GOP groups and his belief that local law enforcement should partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Kevin Liao, Matsui’s campaign spokesperson, told The Bee the information on the website was to contrast Matsui with some of the “extreme Republican ideas” Wooden proposed.
In reality, it was a transparent attempt by Matsui and her advisors to bring the public’s attention to a low-level name in the race so that she wouldn’t have to face Vang in a run-off — redboxing.
According to the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan legal organization, “Coordination, including redboxing, erodes the accountability that everyday voters need from our elected officials.”
A CLC study of the 2022 election showed that the strategy was used by more than 200 federal candidates across the country, “frequently resulting in hundreds of times more super PAC spending in those races.”
Over and over again, I’ve heard Matsui’s supporters say that Vang simply doesn’t have the experience to serve in Congress.
This sort of backroom politicking, along with Matsui’s lack of accessibility to voters, clearly played a role in early voting returns showing that more than 70,000 voters chose to cast a ballot for someone else besides Matsui.
Matsui’s tactics are another example of just how far the Democratic establishment will go to avoid accountability from young voters who want change, and a sign of how far powerful members of Congress will go to maintain their power.
California’s Democratic Party has worked hard to undermine young, progressive candidates: In California’s 22nd Congressional District, the party has done all it can to promote Jasmeet Bains, a centrist who serves in the California Assembly, over a 30-year-old progressive candidate, Randy Villegas.
Right now, Vang and Villegas still have a chance to overcome these Democratic Party tricks and make it to the November runoff despite their own party’s attempts to discredit them.
In Vang’s case, the smear job has included vile stories in the conservative press that questioned her patriotism. Her viability for voters has only crystallized in the face of the 81-year-old incumbent’s desperate and sad attempts to cling to power.
Sacramento, do we really want a congressmember who uses personal wealth to promote a no-chance newcomer, just so she can more easily beat him in November? Is Matsui truly that afraid of an actual debate with a real opponent?
