The race between seven time incumbent Rep Mike Honda (D-Santa Clara Valley) and Silicon Valley entrepreneur and fellow Democrat Ro Khanna is neck and neck, according to a new Survey USA Poll, reports the Mercury News.
The poll commissioned by KPIX TV shows Honda with 37 percent and Khanna with 35 percent. 28 percent of the 579 likely voters surveyed in the automated poll are undecided. The poll has a margin of error of 4.2 percent.
Honda has responded to the tightening race with an attack ad that charges Khanna with supporting both tax breaks for millionaires and privatization of social security without ruling out cuts in benefits.
“Honda’s campaign thinks if they can persuade Democratic voters to stay with the ‘more Democratic’ candidate, they’re going to be successful,” said Corey Cook, who directs the University of San Francisco’s Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good. “It’s a clear ‘campaign to the base’ kind of move.”
Khanna and Honda are running in the only Asian American majority district in the continental United States, the 17th Congressional District.
You can read comments from both the Honda and Khanna campaigns about the ad in the Mercury News and you can see the ad below.
