SAN JOSE — Rep. Mike Honda announced Tuesday he will seek a ninth term in 2016, guaranteeing a second showdown between him and fellow Democrat Ro Khanna to represent the heart of Silicon Valley.
Honda, D-San Jose, said he’s the only candidate with a record of standing up for the entire valley, from high-skilled tech workers to people striving to earn a living wage and make ends meet.
“I’ve got a lot more things to do. I’ve got a lot more projects I want to see to completion,” Honda said Tuesday. “It’s very engaging and energetic. I’m having fun, and I want to continue representing the people of Silicon Valley.”
Khanna, 38, lost to the 73-year-old Honda last year by 3.6 percentage points after a nationally watched and often acrimonious campaign that pitted young against old and labor against business.
The 17th Congressional District is the first district outside Hawaii in which Asian-Americans make up a majority of voters.
Khanna, who once worked in President Barack Obama’s Commerce Department, announced his 2016 candidacy May 30, once again casting himself as a high-tech, new-ideas alternative to an incumbent he says is out of step with the district’s needs.
“We are glad that our campaign seems to have woken Honda up,” Brian Parvizshahi, Khanna’s acting campaign manager, said Tuesday afternoon, adding that Honda “has been sleeping on the job.”
That’s not just a figure of speech. Khanna’s campaign surely will make a commercial from Feb. 27 C-SPAN footage in which Honda seemed to doze off for a few seconds on the House floor during a debate over Homeland Security funding.
Honda, one of the House’s most steadfastly liberal members, said Tuesday he will balance his support of the tech sector with his concern for those it leaves behind, including unskilled workers and Silicon Valley’s staggeringly large homeless population. His priorities include raising the national minimum wage, and he touts more than $2.4 million in federal funding he has brought home for affordable-housing programs in Silicon Valley — including funds to support first-time homebuyers and to help homeless veterans and youths.
Honda also has played roles in legislation to combat human trafficking, and to foster science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, education programs.
He said everyone must have a chance to succeed in Silicon Valley: “We’re a very successful community, but we still have a lot of folks who need attention and help. We can leave nobody behind.”
Parvizshahi said Khanna sees this race less as about running against Honda than as about the district’s future.
Khanna this year has tackled local issues such as the Newby Island Landfill’s odor problem and helping Santa Clara residents who want the San Francisco 49ers to pay fair market value on parks and soccer fields around Levi’s Stadium.
Honda, a former teacher who spent part of his childhood in a World War II-era relocation camp for Japanese-Americans, served as a San Jose planning commissioner, school board member, Santa Clara County supervisor, and state assemblyman before being elected to Congress in 2000. He acknowledged Tuesday that last year’s campaign was “rigorous,” but he said he’s like a hybrid car — ready to keep going mile after mile without a stop.
The presidential election’s bigger voter turnout will “bring out the (Democratic) base much more than in the last cycle,” he said. And that will leave Khanna’s coalition — which relies in part on independents and Republicans — in the dust, Honda said.
“Barring scandal, it’s exceedingly difficult to unseat an incumbent,” said Larry Gerston, a political expert and San Jose State professor emeritus.
But Gerston said Khanna already built significant name recognition in 2014’s race, and both candidates believe higher turnout will be an advantage — Honda with the traditional Democratic base and Khanna with younger voters.
“Each are looking for ways to position themselves … to try to undo the small errors” of 2014, Gerston said, so there’ll be “a lot of tweaking of both campaigns, … and that means both candidates are worried about the outcome.”
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/josh_richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBABuzz.com/politics.
