While other Congressional races for the November general election have Republicans facing off against Democrats, there’s on contest pitting two rivals from the same party against each other.
Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, heads into the Nov. 3 against Sacramento City Council woman Mai Vang for the newly-drawn Congressional District 7 seat.
The new 7th District encompasses Sacramento, Placerville, Elk Grove and Galt, as well as northern and central Lodi and the eastern portion of San Joaquin County into Linden.
Matsui, 81, has represented the Sacramento area since 2005, winning the seat her husband, Bob Matsui, held for 26 years in a special election.
Born in Poston, Ariz., Matsui was raised in Dinuba in Tulare County and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
She served as deputy special assistant to President Bill Clinton, as well as deputy director of public liaison from 1993 to 1998. Afterward, she became a lobbyist in Washington before running for Congress.
Earlier this year, Matsui said she was running for re-election due to her personal experience with injustice, noting she was born in an internment camp during World War II.
“Injustice is something I’ve lived, not something I read in a textbook,” she said. “I know what it’s like to have your family told you don’t belong in your own country. Right now, under the Trump administration, I see that same fear in the eyes of families in our community.”
She said her record in the region is enough to secure her seat in November. That record includes securing billions of dollars in funding for flood protection, safer roads and improved public transit, as well as working to lower health care costs.
Born and raised in Sacramento, Vang is the daughter of Hmong refugees and the oldest of 16 children raised on SNAP and Medicaid.
Vang, also a Democrat, earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of San Francisco and a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Los Angeles.
A professor at Sacramento State, she is a former Sacramento City Unified School District board member and was elected to the Sacramento City Council in 2020.
She said she is running for Congress to fight for people “the establishment” ignores.
“While our costs skyrocket and our immigrant neighbors face a mass deportation machine, the same career politicians have held onto power for decades without delivering the change we need,” she said. “I’m running for Congress to bring a new generation of leadership to Washington — one with the guts to pass Medicare for all, take on the billionaire class, and finally protect our communities from the Trump administration.”
Vang said she is not a career politician and will not take money from political action committees or corporations.
If elected, she said she will fight for affordability and Medicare for all residents and “take the country back” from billionaires and corporations that have “rigged” the economy against working people.