Despite about 66%<\/a> of young voters aged 18 to 24 associating with the Democratic party, incumbents are not giving up their spots. This election cycle, 80<\/a> Gen Z and Millennial candidates across the country are challenging incumbents over the age of 65.<\/p>\n Mai Vang, who is 40 years old<\/a>, and Matsui are the top contenders, having raised $598,232 and $1,343,150 in campaign financing<\/a>, respectively. Voters can make their choice in the primary election on June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n Congressional District 7 starts in the Central Valley, including Elk Grove, parts of Sacramento and ends in the El Dorado Hills. Even after the Proposition 50<\/a> redrawing, party affiliation remains majority Democrat.<\/p>\n Congressional District 7 after Proposition 50 redistricting. Congressional District 7 includes the Sacramento State campus. (Map courtesy of Cal Matters)<\/p>\n RELATED: Sac State community buzzing: Students react to Prop 50 ballot box sweep<\/a><\/p>\n Vang, a Democrat, is currently a Sacramento District 8 councilmember. District 8<\/a> encompasses parts of South Sacramento, including Consumes River College.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what differs me and Doris, my opponent, is that I don\u2019t take any corporate PAC money<\/a>,\u201d Vang said.<\/p>\n A PAC<\/a>, or political action committee, is a non-profit organization that takes money from several donors to support a candidate. Federal elections have contribution limits that individuals or parties can give to a candidate\u2019s campaign, so PACs provide a way around this.<\/p>\n Vang said establishment Democrats and Republicans created the conditions that exist in politics today. This system locks out young people, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cOne out of five newly registered voters<\/a> in Sacramento County are not registering as Democrats, and a big part of that is because the Democratic Party has lost touch with working families and with young people,\u201d Vang said.<\/p>\n Vang was driven by a sense of urgency to run against Matsui, not just age, she said. She said fighting for working families was more important than ever, spurring her campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this moment, young people, Millennials, Gen Z, will have to inherit a world that we didn\u2019t create, and it\u2019s important that they\u2019re at the decision making table shaping those decisions,\u201d Vang said.<\/p>\n Doris Matsui is the Democratic incumbent for Congressional District 7 and has been representing<\/a> the district since 2005. She was selected in a special election to fill the seat of her husband, Robert Matsui, who served<\/a> the district from 1979 until his passing in 2005.<\/p>\n \u201cJudge me on my work, not my birth certificate,\u201d Matsui said. \u201cAt this moment, more than ever before, experience matters. This isn\u2019t about clinging to power. It\u2019s about being effective when the stakes are highest.\u201d<\/p>\n Increasing affordability, creating good paying jobs and holding ICE and the Trump administration accountable are most important to her campaign, Matsui said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve repeatedly led oversight visits to the John E. Moss Federal Building, where ICE is detaining people in downtown Sacramento,\u201d Matsui said. \u201cWe must continue holding the administration accountable for violating the law and our civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Matsui said she recognizes the same fear in families in the community that her own family felt. For that reason, she is running for re-election to deliver results that make her constituent\u2019s lives better, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was born in a Japanese internment camp on American soil. Injustice is something I\u2019ve lived, not something I read in a textbook,\u201d Matsui said.<\/p>\n Enayat Nazhat is a Democrat running to represent Congressional District 7. He said if elected, he would ask the same question of every bill he voted on: how does it benefit an American citizen?<\/p>\n \u201cRepresentative Matsui, who I\u2019m running against in this race, is one of the people who is empowering Israel and IDF to commit a genocide and kill civilians and children in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Iran and other nations,\u201d Nazhat said. \u201cBack in 2024, Representative Matsui voted yes on a bill<\/a> to send 26 billion dollars of aid to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n Before running for Congress, Nazhat said he was building a start-up company whose goal will be providing opportunities for younger people to get into politics.<\/p>\n \u201cEstablishment Democrats are making it extremely hard for younger people to be involved in politics and get into politics,\u201d Nazhat said. \u201cThe Democratic party is completely inaccessible for people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n Nazhat said if the Democratic party continues down the current path, more Americans will realize that the party is not working for them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just enough to be young,\u201d Nazhat said. \u201cYou need to have the initiative, the ideas and the experience that once you are in the United States Congress, you\u2019re able to do something for the people and not just grab onto power and stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n Ralph Nwobi is a Republican running against incumbent Doris Matsui. This is not his first time challenging Matsui, as he ran for Congress in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a former prosecutor, I look at it like the situation where you actually have to hold people accountable,\u201d Nwobi said.<\/p>\n Nwobi said age is a leading issue in the race.<\/p>\n \u201cThe incumbent right now, she\u2019s a multi-millionaire, her husband is also a multi-millionaire, and she\u2019s been there for a while,\u201d Nwobi said. \u201cSo, she\u2019s simply out of touch.\u201d<\/p>\n Nwobi said if elected, he would push for term limits for politicians, suggesting a cap for those 78 years old or older.<\/p>\n While no age cap has yet been set for Congress, 80%<\/a> of Americans support imposing a maximum age limit for candidates running for the Senate or the House of Representatives. Since 2025, five members<\/a> of Congress have died in office.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that age, people should be retiring so that they should pave the way for people that are young and more vibrant to actually come in with fresh, new, bold ideas to help improve the lives of constituents,\u201d Nwobi said.<\/p>\n Robby Morin is a Democrat running against Matsui. Housing, healthcare and access to education are most important to his campaign, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re just not accessible anymore. And there are reasons for that and things that I think the government is uniquely qualified to go out and solve for,\u201d Morin said.<\/p>\n Morin said a lot had to go right for him to work hard to build a business and a life for himself. He said he has seen friends struggling to buy a home or have consistent healthcare coverage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had the same person for 20 years, the whole time that this issue is getting worse and worse, day by day, year by year,\u201d Morin said,<\/p>\n In any party, young candidates will walk into barriers that the older generations have created to hold onto their power, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think over the next decade, you\u2019re only going to see it build more and more, whether that\u2019s because we\u2019re successful and we kind of push them out, or whether they come to their senses and realize that maybe they have stuck around for too long, it\u2019s time to let the next generation lead,\u201d Morin said.<\/p>\n Students may vote by mail in the primary election if they are registered to vote in Sacramento County. Sacramento State will hold a vote center<\/a> in Modoc Hall, Willow Suites 1-3 on election day, June 2, 2026. Ballot drop boxes<\/a> will also be available at the Welcome Center between May 4 and June 2, 2026.<\/p>\n The State Hornet reached out to Republican candidate Zachariah Wooden for comment but did not receive a response by press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a race for California Congressional District 7 dominated by Democrats, this year\u2019s candidates are seeing party incumbents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-333289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/house-7-600x329.webp\")
(Courtesy of CalMatters)<\/p>\n