(August 3)  Matthew Munson acknowledged that his prospect of prevailing in his electoral effort in the 20th California Senatorial District race is daunting. Nevertheless, he is gamely campaigning he said to demonstrate to his opponent, Democrat Connie Leyva, that she needs to consider the perspectives of the Republicans in the district.
In the 20th District, the numbers strongly favor the Democrats. Of the districts 291,110 voters, 76.71 or 26.4 percent are Republican and 136,016 or 46.7 percent are Democrats.
Munson said he could not bear the thought of the GOP just throwing in the towel in the 20th, and that is why he ran in the primary in June.
“I did not want a Democrat to win the race and then have another Democrat take second so that what it would come down to in November is one Democrat calling Republicans saying ‘I want your vote.’ That is the only time Democrats listen to Republicans, when they want our votes to beat another Democrat. I wanted to give Republicans a Republican choice rather than having to choose between two shades of beige.”
Having captured second in the primary, Munson is now entitled to run against Leyva in November, and in so doing, propound the Republican message.
“This is as horrible of a business climate as there has ever been in California,” he said. “There are approaching a million and a half people without jobs,” he said. “Many of the people who do have jobs are stuck in a place where they cannot move up because there is no chance of promotion. Right now, my sister is unemployed and she has been that way for more than two months. She has never been without a job for that long.It should not take that long to find the opportunity to work. I want to bring opportunity back to California and back to our district.”
Munson’s formula for curing California’s economic doldrums, he said, is to “get rid of the overregulation. The government is making business owners jump through way to many hoops. We have to lower taxes and waive certain fees that are crippling start up companies. Businesses are what make it possible for employees to earn. Employees who earn then become paying customers of other businesses, and that is the way the economy grows. Without business there can be no growth, no taxes, nor roads, schools or infrastructure. If we make it more difficult for businesses to operate in California, we hurt everyone.”
He continued, “My opponent is basically a union leader. Her main concern is the unions. Not everyone is a union member. She does not understand that small businesses that employ people are struggling and if we bury those businesses that employ people, there will soon be no work and no jobs.”
Munson said, “Basically, I want the people in our district to send a message to Connie to make sure she is listening to the people. If large numbers of people vote for me, even though I do not get elected, she will know she has to be a mainstream state senator and she must be fair to everyone and do a good job for our state and economic development and growth.”
Munson graduated from Chaffey High School in Ontario, attended Chaffey College in Alta Loma and studied political science at UC Riverside.
He is employed in the retail industry.