Zoe Lofgren is in panic mode and is frantically sending out fundraising emails in a desperate and grasping attempt to retain her seat in Congress. The powerfully entrenched 30-year incumbent is facing the insurgent campaign of Charlene Concepción Nijmeh, who is poised to oust Lofgren from office in November. Private polling shows that Lofgren’s support is collapsing. Among Democrats who vote regularly in primary elections, only 22% say that they intend to vote for Lofgren in the March 5th primary, with a majority of Democrats indicating that they are undecided.
For a longtime incumbent, those are very bad numbers. With Lofgren realizing her reelection prospects are in free fall, she has erratically made accusations against Nijmeh — including the factually false (and potentially defamatory?) claim that Nijmeh is a Republican.
Nijmeh has been a registered Democrat her entire life. Political observers call the accusation ‘unhinged’ for someone of Lofgren’s age. It’s a falsehood that is easily debunked, but Lofgren intends the falsehood as political misinformation for her strategic benefit — and she is sending out mass emails spreading the misinformation.
That behavior is raising eyebrows, because Lofgren believes that she will be the Chairwoman of the Science, Technology, and Space Committee next year — which First Amendment advocates fear. Lofgren support’s Big Tech’s censorship regime that is intended to suppress the lawful political speech of her opponents.
Meanwhile, Lofgren voted against the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, which would have prohibited federal employees from censoring the speech of others while acting in an official capacity (3/9/23)
Lofgren makes these scare mongering accusations about Republicans as she solicits campaign contributions. Critics say that the behavior is typical of the congresswoman, and they identify it as the type of hyper-partisanship that prevents members of Congress from working across the aisle to solve problems.
Marisol Diaz, a San Jose-based real estate agent and insurance broker, is a supporter of Nijmeh’s campaign and has been vocal on social media.
“As a life long Democrat, I support Charlene because she too is a life long Democrat, and she has the courage to stand up and call out her own party when it has strayed away from the cause. Charlene supports immigration and customs reforms. As a daughter of immigrants and an unwavering ally of the LGBTQ community, I know that Charlene will be a great public servant,” Diaz explains.
“I find it very telling that Zoe Lofgren has the audacity to speak about immigration when she has done nothing to move the needle forward when it comes to immigration reform, especially considering that she is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Border Security, Immigration, Refugees, and Customs,” she tells The Chronicle. “She has the nerve to play politics with this issue come election time, but then refuses to get anything done.”
“It’s time for Zoe to retire and allow other people the space to move us forward. This is a majority Latino district, and it deserves diverse representation,” she adds. “Zoe has got to go.”
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