Republican Scott Jones spoke at the year’s first meeting of the Sacramento State College Republicans on Wednesday as he campaigns to unseat Democratic Rep. Ami Bera in Sacramento County’s hotly contested 7th District.
Jones, a Sac State alum and the elected sheriff of Sacramento County, encouraged club members to volunteer for his campaign.
“This race has become one of the top, if not the top race, for the Republican Party,” Jones said. “The interest, the excitement on my race — if you go back, Paul Ryan, Leader (Kevin) McCarty — everyone is talking about my race. Hard for me to wrap my head around, to be honest with you.”
Jones, who said in January that he planned to vote for the Republican nominee for president, reaffirmed his support for Donald Trump on Wednesday despite the endorsement having cost him the support of labor union Teamsters Joint Council 7 in May.
“He became the nominee. … I wasn’t at his rally. I’m not sending money. But given the choice between him and Hillary Clinton, my inclination is to support the Republican nominee,” Jones said.
The College Republicans endorsed Jones following his remarks. Club chairman Ryan Brown said that the Jones-Bera race is the only one in which the club plans to make an endorsement.
“He will be the only candidate we endorse because we haven’t had this seat in Congress for six years now and we intend to focus all our efforts on this,” Brown said.
Bera, who has represented the Sacramento suburbs since 2013, narrowly defeated former congressman Doug Ose two years ago by a margin of 1,455 votes out of almost 200,000 cast.
Also attending the meeting was Nick Bloise, the Republican candidate for California State Assembly in the 8th District and a Sac State alum. Bloise is running against incumbent Democrat Ken Cooley, who won the district 56-43 in 2014.
“I want to see what the millennials are thinking and I want to know what concerns them,” Bloise said. “I don’t see the same opportunities I had. The tuition is 10 times higher than it should be; they’re graduating in debt.”
The College Republicans meeting was the first for Calvin Freer, a film major. He said that he sometimes feels silenced on campus because of his political views.
“People are pretty hostile when you say you’re voting for Trump,” Freer said. “I avoid the topic in most of my classes because I’m the minority in political ideology, so I kind of keep my mouth shut.”
The College Republicans meet every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Summit room in The Union.
