Bera, Jones Race Takes on The Bizarre Nature of The Presidential Campaign Following the Trump Recording

October 10, 2016 |

The revelation of Donald Trump's tapes on Friday afternoon has rocked not only the Presidential race, but it has worked its way into the hotly contested race between Democratic Congressman Dr. Ami Bera and Republican Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones for California's 7th Congressional District race.

In the fallout, scores of prominent Republican's have abandoned Trump. For Jones, the fallout has put him in a precarious position. 

Jones, who in the past said he would vote for Trump but would not endorse him, has like many other Republican candidates have been forced into an awkward spot. 

Jones could continue to say he will vote for Trump, but not endorse him and scare away undecided voters. Conversely, Jones could repudiate Trump in hopes of attracting those undecided, but as we will see, scare away his Republican base who are supporting Trump.

Not surprisingly, the Bera campaign is trying to exploit the position Trump has placed several down-ballot candidates in, including Jones.

An email from the Bera campaign tonight shows a snapshot of a posting and comments on Jones' Facebook page that they claim has been subsequently taken down. The posting on Jones' Facebook page, sent from the Bera campaign and posted below, notes Jones saying that he will no longer vote for Trump.     

As the Bera campaign has pointed out, that posting has been removed from Jones Facebook page.

The interesting thing in reading the comments is that the vast majority of them say they will not vote for Jones because he is not voting for Trump. Obviously, it is a very small sampling of voters, but it is indicative of the position where down-ballot candidates now occupy.

Even though Jones' most recent Facebook postings have avoided any mention of Trump, a few seemingly Republican voters are still going after him. 

Tomorrow absentee ballots will start showing up in the mailboxes of 7th District voters and 28 days from tomorrow others will cast their votes in their local precincts. A lot can happen in four weeks, and as recent history in this district has shown, we can still expect a close race. 

If Jones loses, he can probably look to the effect Trump's tapes had on the race and chalk up the loss to a case of unfortunate timing. Conversely, if Jones wins, he can attribute it to holding a fragile coalition together and not getting shot by the circular firing squad he seems to be surrounded by over the last few days.