The midterm elections next fall have already begun to receive attention as the first national referendum of the Trump era. On the political left, eager candidates across the country are vying to be the face of “the resistance” in Congress, to take back the national dignity that was so shockingly robbed from them and many others last fall. The Democrats have a fighting chance to win the House, but in the Senate they face an unusually unfriendly electoral map. With 25 of the caucus’s 48 members facing re-election, including several vulnerable incumbents in states that went to Trump, the party’s ability to maintain a strong minority position — to say nothing of claiming a majority — will hinge on the campaigns waged in these battleground states.
Yet, in California, far beyond the reach of Trump’s electoral clout, another key Senate battle is taking shape. Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced her intention to seek re-election. If she succeeds, she will enter her sixth term in the Senate, and begin what can only be assumed to be the final chapter of an illustrious career at the pinnacle of California politics.
The Republican Party is highly unlikely to muster enough votes to field a candidate against Feinstein in the general election, which, under California’s electoral laws, is waged between the two most popular candidates from the primary regardless of party affiliation. Thus, the national narrative surrounding the midterms — that of a referendum on Trump and Republican rule — won’t apply to the California race.
Nevertheless the campaign for Feinstein’s seat has the potential to be consequential in a different way, one which will play a crucial role in the evolution of the Democratic Party’s post-2016 trajectory. Soon after Feinstein’s announcement, Kevin de Léon, the Democratic President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate, mounted a bid to unseat her. Whereas the Democrats’ performance in swing states will be a bellwether for the party’s national viability in the Trump era, the intra-party battles waged in blue states like California will serve as a crucible for Democratic transformation.
De Léon’s campaign represents the first major Democratic challenge Feinstein has faced since she was originally elected in 1992, a reflection of both her revered status and the calcified state of California politics. By challenging Feinstein from the left, de Léon will not only force her to confront the state’s increasingly liberal outlook, but will give national party leaders a chance to weigh in on progressive ideas in a much safer realm than Missouri or South Dakota. This is not to say that progressive candidates shouldn’t run in conservative states, only that the risk-averse Democratic Party have an opportunity to use the California race to better understand changes in their base.
In the end, the odds that de Léon will unseat Feinstein are long. She commands immense respect from California Democrats, has a formidable war chest and personal fortune at her disposal, and is beloved by her base. She has served admirably over her quarter century in the Senate, championing women’s rights, gun control, and environmental protections while leading some of the chamber’s top committees. But her general tendency toward centrism and her conservative record on issues like national security, tax cuts, and the death penalty seem increasingly dissonant as California moves forward as a vanguard of progressivism.
Recent polls, for instance, show that nearly two thirds of Californians support the concept of single-payer health care, of which Feinstein remains a skeptic. De Léon, on the other hand, spent the spring pushing a single-payer bill through the State Senate, although it failed in the Assembly. During the campaign, de Léon is likely to leverage these policy differences to both push Feinstein to the left and change the state-level — if not national — conversation. The battle for the Senate will take place in the heartland, but the battle for party’s future will take place in California.
Benjamin Sorensen, a senior studying political science, is a weekly columnist for Stanford Politics.