Nasty ads, big spending by unknown donors and feverish get-out-the-vote efforts are marking the full-boil endgame of the long-simmering showdown between Rep. Mike Honda and Democratic challenger Ro Khanna.
Honda, D-San Jose, has tried to rally his liberal base by tying Khanna to conservatives Ernie Konnyu, a former Silicon Valley congressman who wanted the Tea Party Express to help Khanna, and Texas energy hedge fund billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron trader who gives to many Democrats but champions public pension reform. Arnold and his wife are the biggest donors disclosed so far to a super PAC that has spent more than $800,000 on mailers and radio ads supporting Khanna.
Honda also has aired a television ad and sent out a mailer attacking Khanna for refusing to rule out cuts to Social Security benefits — which Khanna has indeed ruled out — and for favoring tax breaks for U.S. companies that “repatriate” foreign profits back to American shores, which Honda also supports.
Khanna, a Fremont resident and former official in President Barack Obama’s Commerce Department, has tried to rally his coalition of moderate Democrats, independents and Republicans in part by casting Honda as an unreconstructed labor-backed liberal who has missed too many votes, accomplished too little in his seven terms, and whose staffers acted unethically by coordinating with his campaign. Honda wears the liberal label proudly, but says he has consistently delivered for the district’s working families.
“Both sides have taken a holier-than-thou attitude and been incredibly disingenuous about the other,” said Larry Gerston, a San Jose State University political science professor. “There are so many flaws to find in the way each has presented himself, you could write a book. It’s been a fairly disappointing contest all around.”
The ugliness masks insecurity, he said.
“It shows you the extent to which both campaigns feel desperate,” Gerston said. “This is going to be a nail-biter of an election. You don’t take these huge risks that both sides have taken unless you feel like you have to go for broke.”
Honda and Khanna are battling to represent the heart of Silicon Valley and the first Asian-American majority House district outside Hawaii.
Khanna, a darling in the tech community, started the nationally watched race with a huge financial advantage, having raised a record-breaking $1.2 million in the last quarter of 2011, when people thought he would run to succeed Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, in the 15th Congressional District. But Stark wouldn’t retire and Khanna wouldn’t challenge him, leaving Stark to fall instead in 2012 to fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell.
Khanna then pivoted to challenge Honda in the 17th District — and outraised Honda through 2013. But Khanna spent most of his bankroll before June’s primary — in which he finished 20 points behind Honda while two Republican candidates were eliminated — giving Honda a money advantage in this general election’s home stretch.
But Californians for Innovation, the super PAC spending independently to support Khanna, has now spent about $812,000 on mailers and radio ads. More than 40 percent of that was raised since the last campaign finance reporting deadline, so the donors won’t be disclosed until December.
Khanna, by law, can’t control what the super PAC does, but Khanna spokesman Tyler Law noted that Khanna has refused to take any direct campaign contributions by PACs or lobbyists. Khanna said Friday that he’s keeping $2,600 he received Monday from GOP political operative Wayne Berman, who was registered as a lobbyist until 2012.
“He repeatedly asked Congressman Honda to sign Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s ‘People’s Pledge’ to keep super PACs out of this race. Congressman Honda refused to sign it,” Law added.
Honda had countered that challenge with one of his own — to limit campaign contributions to $570, the same ceiling Fremont uses for municipal elections, and refund money to anyone who already had given more. That would’ve gutted Khanna’s war chest.
Now both sides are bringing out their big guns for the final push.
Honda on Thursday announced his campaign is calling voters with a recorded pitch from Michelle Obama.
“In an election this close, your vote is more important than ever before,” the first lady says in the recording. “We can’t risk having more out-of-touch folks coming to Congress, just because a handful of Democratic voters stayed home. Your vote for Mike Honda will make a real difference in supporting our president.”
Khanna — who has knocked on more than 6,600 doors and attended more than 200 meet-and-greets during this campaign — has an exhausting schedule of get-out-the-vote efforts Saturday through Monday across the district, from phone banking in Cupertino and knocking on doors in Milpitas to stumping at the Sunnyvale Farmers Market and attending services Sunday at Santa Clara’s North Valley Baptist Church.
The highlight will be a Santa Clara University rally at 3 p.m. Saturday with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the biggest-name Democrat backing Khanna.
Honda will be pounding the pavement too. Joining him for get-out-the-vote rallies this weekend will be state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, himself in a tight re-election race, at noon Saturday in Cupertino; Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., at 3 p.m. Saturday in San Jose; and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and other local Democratic candidates at noon Sunday in Newark.
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
