The Bee’s California 2026 primary endorsements: Four important Sacramento races to watch

The June 2 California primary delivers an unusually consequential ballot for Sacramento-area Democrats. Voter-approved Proposition 50 redrew congressional lines across the state, a 20-year incumbent faces her first serious challenger, an open county supervisor seat is up for grabs and — in a rare move — a sitting judge is being challenged less than two years after his appointment.

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Here is how The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board sees the four most consequential races, and the reasoning behind each endorsement.

7th Congressional District: Mai Vang over Doris Matsui

The headline race in the region is also its most uncomfortable. Rep. Doris Matsui, 81, is seeking her 13th election to the House. Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang, 41, is the first Democrat with elected experience and real fundraising muscle to challenge a Matsui since she succeeded her late husband, Robert Matsui, in 2005.

Matsui declined two separate invitations from The Bee — first to debate Vang before subscribers in East Sacramento, then to join Vang in a virtual interview, the same format used by McClatchy opinion journalists in more than 40 races statewide. Under the board’s policy, that refusal disqualified Matsui from endorsement consideration. She is the only frontline Democrat or Republican from the Sacramento region to decline.

That alone would be a defining contrast. But the board’s affirmative case for Vang is built on more than process. Vang, the eldest of 16 children of Laotian refugees, has yet to pay off her student loans and her husband works extra shifts. Matsui is married to a multimillionaire. The board argues Vang “embodies today’s Sacramento” in a way Matsui no longer does — and that the affordability crisis driving her campaign message “to lower costs and fight for working families” is not abstract for her.

The generational and ideological contrast is sharp. On the council, Vang was one of two members (with former Councilmember Katie Valenzuela) who challenged then-City Manager Howard Chan when his power went unchecked. The board notes she is “still in her learning years” and has room to grow as a leader, but credits her as a tireless, accessible advocate. If elected, Vang would be the first Hmong American in Congress.

Proposition 50 reshapes the stakes. The redrawn 7th now covers the southern half of Sacramento and extends south to Lodi, west into West Sacramento, and east to Placerville and El Dorado County — much of it new territory to Matsui. The board’s verdict: “Matsui is in office to serve us, not the other way around.”

Also on the ballot: Democrats Enayat Nazhat and Robby Morin, and Republicans Zachariah Wooden and Ralph Nwobi.

6th Congressional District: Dr. Richard Pan

The newly drawn 6th — Rocklin, Roseville, Citrus Heights, West Sacramento and large portions of northern and eastern Sacramento — is one of the most consequential products of Prop. 50. Rep. Kevin Kiley, recently reclassified from Republican to “No Party Preference,” moves from a safe 3rd District to a far tougher 6th. Under California’s top-two primary, he could still advance to November.

In a crowded Democratic field that includes Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho, West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero and Planned Parenthood Advocates Mar Monte executive Lauren Babb-Tomlinson, the board endorsed former state Sen. Richard Pan, the pediatrician who authored California’s school vaccination law and faced death threats, assault, harassment and stalking for it.

The deciding contrast was Kiley’s support for H.R. 1, President Donald Trump’s budget law. Kiley touted tax relief; Pan pointed to Congressional Budget Office estimates of $911 billion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years and roughly 10 million Americans losing health coverage by 2034. “We believe the damage done to working-class people in California by H.R. 1 outweighs the tax benefits to higher-income earners,” the board wrote.

Pan’s local record runs deep. He founded Communities and Physicians Together, a grassroots program partnering pediatricians with neighborhoods, and co-founded Healthy Kids Healthy Future, which provides health, dental and vision coverage to more than 65,000 children in the region. Time magazine called him a “hero” in 2015 for the legislation that halted California’s measles outbreak.

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“We’re seeing thousands of (measles) cases in South Carolina and Texas. Well, not here in California,” Pan told the board. “That’s because of the work that was done.”

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facing budget cuts of up to 53% under Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the board concluded the moment calls for voters to send “a doctor to Congress.”

Sacramento County Supervisors, District 1: Flojaune Cofer

Supervisor Phil Serna’s exit after four terms opens the downtown and North Natomas seat, District 1, at a moment when the board argues the county board needs a change agent. The board cites a “deep-rooted cultural problem of avoiding difficult conversations” on homelessness, no regular meetings with the city, inadequate mental health and addiction services, and no interest in new shelter sites.

Flojaune Cofer, who finished a close second to Kevin McCarty in the 2024 Sacramento mayoral race, gets the nod. Her public health background would be valuable on a board that oversees county delivery of those services but lacks a member with that expertise. She opposes three Serna-backed North Natomas projects the board calls part of a “rotten political culture” of approving more than 100,000 housing units that never get built.

Sacramento City Councilmember Eric Guerra and former state legislator Deborah Ortiz are also running, along with computer programmer Tim Riley. The board calls Guerra “highly qualified” with an inspirational life story, but faulted his December 2023 vote for another raise for former Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan at a meeting later deemed illegal for inadequate public notice — a reversal that came only after public outcry. Because no Sacramento County incumbent supervisor has lost reelection in decades, the open seat may be voters’ only real chance at change.

Placer Superior Court: Judge Leon Dixson

Contested judicial races are rare. Challenges to sitting judges appointed within the past two years are rarer still. The board endorsed Dixson over Rocklin Mayor Dave Bass, a Sacramento County prosecutor.

Dixson, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 17, 2024, previously served as Regional Counsel for Civil Rights at Legal Services of Northern California. “I have spent my entire career helping people out of poverty,” he said. Every judge on the Placer Superior Court supports his retention.

Bass is backed by Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire, Sheriff Wayne Woo, GOP state Sen. Roger Niello and Assemblymember Joe Patterson — all candidates The Bee has endorsed in other races. But his stated reasons for the challenge — complaints from bailiffs and clerks, calendar management, reassignments — strike the board as “frivolous procedural complaints” belonging at the courthouse, not on the ballot. The board respects Bass but found no credible case for removing Dixson.

What’s at stake

Two of these four races are direct products of Prop. 50’s redistricting. Two test whether long-settled local power structures — a 20-year incumbency, decades of county supervisor stability — bend to new challengers. For primary voters who use The Bee’s endorsements as a decision-making tool, June 2 is not a routine ballot.