The 2024 California Senate race could be Democrats' next big civil war
Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee and (maybe) Ro Khanna gear up for a fight over the future of the left.
... With the news Thursday that Rep. Adam Schiff of Los Angeles is entering the ever-more-crowded fray — and that 89-year-old incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein isn’t even planning to decide whether to retire or run again until “next year” — California appears to be barreling toward a Senate contest that could easily become the craziest of the cycle: a civil war between some of America’s top Democrats about what it means to be a progressive in 2024....
Schiff isn’t the first Golden State Dem to set his sights on Feinstein’s seat, and he probably won’t be the last. Just days into the new year, Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County got a head start when she revealed that she would be running regardless of whether Feinstein stays or goes....
Lest she be outmaneuvered, longtime Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee informed her colleagues in a closed-door Congressional Black Caucus meeting the following day that she’s also planning to compete for Feinstein’s seat, according to Politico....
And at least one other marquee Democrat — Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna — is considering a bid. “In the next few months I will make a decision,” Khanna told NBC News on Jan. 10....
The two Southern Californians (Porter and Schiff) have the most money in the bank ($7 million and $20 million, respectively) and the biggest national profiles. (Facing serious GOP challengers in her Orange County swing district, Porter in particular has become one of the party’s most prolific fundraisers, raking in a cool $25 million last cycle.) The two northern Californians (Lee and Khanna) are less loaded, but perhaps more beloved in certain sectors of the left.
An early statewide poll commissioned by the Porter campaign showed Porter leading the potential primary field with 30%, ahead of Schiff (29%), Lee (9%) and Khanna (6%). In a top-two runoff, Porter led Schiff by 11 percentage points....
As a former leader of the Congressional Black Caucus with deep roots in the East Bay’s activist scene, Lee, 76, represents two of the most enduring sources of Democratic strength: the Black community and urban liberals. (In 2001, Lee cemented her progressive bona fides when she became the lone member of Congress to vote against authorizing the war in Afghanistan.) Her candidacy will test, in part, whether the factor that puts “a candidate over the top is appeal to the base, and that’s people of color, particularly women of color,” as Aimee Allison, president and founder of She the People, recently told the Sacramento Bee.
It will also test how eager California Democrats are for generational change; according to a San Francisco Chronicle report, Lee’s team is already trying to address age concerns by “pitching her to donors as a transitional candidate who’d serve [only] one term.”
... A former student of Warren’s at Harvard Law School, Porter has displayed a Warren-like knack for exposing corporate chicanery and demystifying special-interest complexities, often utilizing her signature “whiteboard” to relentlessly interrogate congressional witnesses. “She stands up to Wall Street and Big Pharma,” Warren said in an endorsement video released immediately after Porter’s announcement. “She holds fossil fuel companies accountable. And she fights for all our rights. We need her — and her whiteboard — in the United States Senate.”
... In other words, it’s clear even now that California is going to be a Democratic slugfest in 2024 — and a revealing one at that.
Delayed start, still on. Dolt .45 is spewing lies and stupidity. 30 seconds is my limit.
. There hasn't been a Black woman in the Senate since Kamala quit, so I won't be crying if Lee gets the nod.
. Fine with me if he joins Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) in the Senate Asian caucus.
I was going to put him in a "spoiler" box, but I felt bad about assuming how an old White man would vote. 
