Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

Brad Sherman Crushes Berman in L.A. Battle

The bitter fight to represent the newly redrawn 30th congressional district in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley is finally over.

Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman swamped fellow Democrat Howard Berman to win the seat. With 83% of precincts counted, he held a gaping 60%-40% lead.

The contest between the two incumbents, pitted against one another as a result of the constitutionally required redrawing of congressional districts that takes place once a decade after the completion of the national census, was bitterly fought at one of the highest costs for any congressional race.

The crushing defeat spells the end of the 30-year political career of Berman, 71, an influential moderate pro-Israel Jewish voice that will no longer be heard on Capitol Hill.

The race shaped up as a peculiarly Los Angeles kind of class struggle. Rich Hollywood Jews including Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and other entertainment industry heavies lined up for Berman while working folks in the Valley went for Sherman.

It was also a struggle between a Beltway insider with backing from the Democratic establishment, including President Obama, and a local favorite with grass roots support. The results were not surprising given that Sherman won a comfortable lead over Berman in California’s new “best of two” primary system in June.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.