Don’t wait your turn. Mai Vang and Eric Jones demonstrate why | Opinion

There is an unwritten rule within the permanent political class: Wait in line.

If you want to run for higher office, you are expected to bide your time, pay your dues, kiss the rings of party bosses and wait for the person ahead of you to either vacate the seat or retire. This is a foundational law of the political ecosystem nationwide.

But as the returns from the June primary election show, voters are tired of waiting. In an environment where the electorate is clearly hungry for change, some candidates decided to give them an option. And the establishment is absolutely furious about it.

Take a look at the congressional races in Northern California. In the 7th Congressional District, longtime incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui faced her first truly formidable primary challenge in 20 years from Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang.

Meanwhile, in the neighboring 4th Congressional District, Rep. Mike Thompson, a powerhouse who has walked the halls of Congress since 1999, was forced into a real fight by Eric Jones, a wealthy tech entrepreneur and philanthropist.

Both challengers did remarkably well and made it to November. They tapped into a deep, under-the-radar anxiety among voters about the affordability crisis, generational disconnect and an aging political leadership. This is an election cycle where voters want something different, and they are perfectly willing to change who represents them in Congress — even if that means replacing an incumbent with someone from their own party.

Yet, if you spent any time talking to the party loyalists in the Matsui and Thompson camps over the last few months, you didn’t hear a serious policy debate. Instead, you heard people being offended.

The overriding sentiment from the institutional insiders was that Vang and Jones were somehow unworthy of even being on the ballot. How dare they challenge the matriarch and patriarch of Sacramento’s federal delegation?

This is classic political gatekeeping, and it ignores a fundamental truth of modern politics: Nobody owns a seat.

We have seen this movie before. Back in 2012, a young, ambitious Dublin City Councilman named Eric Swalwell looked at Pete Stark, a 20-term incumbent who was increasingly out of touch with his district, and decided he wasn’t going to wait.

The party leaders were apoplectic. They tried to box Swalwell out. They told him it wasn’t his turn.

Of course, looking at his career now, the trajectory has been a wild ride. He wouldn’t still be on the Dublin City Council today, but he also wouldn’t have launched a fleeting run for president or governor — or faced the series of personal scandals and serious allegations that have dogged his time in Washington.

But the mechanism of his rise remains a blueprint in a top-two primary system. If Swalwell had listened to the establishment and stayed in line, he never would have entered the national stage. Vang and Jones are exercising that same right to challenge the status quo.

Win or lose, their presence on the ballot forces a healthy democratic accountability that entrenched incumbents rarely face.

But the establishment’s complaints don’t just stop at seniority. They love to pick and choose their moral outrages, particularly when it comes to campaign cash.

Throughout the primary, the institutional left didn’t hesitate to question Jones for trying to buy a congressional seat with his self-funded millions. They cast it as an affront to grassroots democracy.

Fair enough. But where is that same energy when it comes to the top of the ticket?

Tom Steyer spent the better part of the last decade using his immense personal billionaire wealth to influence national politics, and now he has poured eye-popping amounts of his own money into trying to buy the California governorship. Yet, the very same party leaders who clutched their pearls over Jones’ campaign spending haven’t said a peep about Steyer.

Apparently, trying to buy an election is only a sin if you’re trying to buy it from an incumbent they like.

Recent election results should serve as a wake-up call for the political class. Voters don’t care about unwritten lines or party loyalty tests when they are looking for change. Challengers have a right to run, and when incumbents stop showing up or start being out of touch, someone will step up to fill the void.

It’s time for party leaders to stop expecting a coronation and start remembering how to win an election.

Matt Rexroad is an attorney, political consultant and certified fraud examiner.