New IGS poll says Dems likely to keep contested Sacramento House seat

One of California’s few true swing congressional districts is likely to stay in Democratic hands, according to a new poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies.

A narrow 48 percent of likely voters in the 7th Congressional District in suburban Sacramento said they were likely to re-elect Democrat Ami Bera to his third term, according to the poll.

The sentiment of voters was closely tied to Bera’s work resisting President Donald Trump’s agenda, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll.

“Bera’s NO votes on the recently enacted tax bill and the unsuccessful attempt to repeal the Obamacare health reform law last summer, appear to bolster his re-election chances,” DiCamillo said in a press release.

Bera unseated Republican Dan Lungren in 2012, 51 percent to 49 percent. He’s won his last two elections by similarly razor-thin margins: 0.8 percent in 2014, and 2 percent in 2016.

The analysis is part of an effort by the Berkeley IGS Poll to examine the vulnerability of incumbents running for re-election in California’s contested House races. Earlier polls found that voters in Southern California where not inclined to return their Republican representatives to Congress, largely because the voters disapproved of the job Trump is doing.

The survey of Bera’s constituents polled 1,056 likely voters via email from January 11 to January 21. The sampling error of the poll is 3.3 percent.

You can read the IGS Berkeley Poll’s complete analysis of California swing districts here.