(July 15, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n
The race in California\u2019s 7th Congressional District, which includes Sacramento, the state capital, will pit incumbent Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) against Mai Vang, a member of the Sacramento City Council, a fellow Democrat who has accused Israel of committing \u201cgenocide\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Vang finished first in California\u2019s June top-two primary with 65,617 votes (31.2%), followed by Matsui with 61,114 votes (29.1%), according to the Associated Press<\/a>. Under California\u2019s open primary system, the two highest vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation.<\/p>\n Dan Schnur, a political science lecturer at Pepperdine University, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley, told JNS that \u201cVang is currently riding a wave of progressive energy that has been deciding Democratic primaries across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese candidates are younger, more liberal and far more anti-Israel than the incumbents and other establishment-backed targets they have been taking out,\u201d Schnur said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way to predict whether Vang can keep this trend going, but she has clearly tapped into a nationwide surge that has been electing these candidates elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Vang\u2019s campaign website<\/a> calls to \u201cstop the genocide in Palestine\u201d and states that \u201cin 2024, while Doris was cashing checks from AIPAC, I was in City Hall passing Sacramento\u2019s ceasefire resolution.\u201d Though the American Israel Public Affairs Committee endorsed<\/a> Matsui in 2024, she does not appear on AIPAC\u2019s list<\/a> of 2026 endorsements.<\/p>\n The ceasefire resolution<\/a>, which passed in March 2024, called for an end to the Gaza war and the release of the hostages in Gaza, as well as the \u201cunconditional release of all Palestinians held without charge or trial in Israeli prisons.\u201d The resolution also denounced the rise in Jew-hatred and Islamophobia following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n Vang\u2019s campaign website also states that she will \u201cfight to end military aid that enables war crimes and the occupation of Gaza\u201d and support the \u201cBlock the Bombs\u201d bill that would restrict the U.S. president from providing Israel with certain offensive weapons. She criticized<\/a> Matsui in a social media post for not calling Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza a \u201cgenocide\u201d and for not signing on to the Block the Bombs bill.<\/p>\n In October 2025, Vang posted a picture<\/a> of her with Linda Sarsour, an anti-Israel activist, at a local Council on American-Islamic Relations event.<\/p>\n \u2018Opportunistic\u2019<\/p>\n