Once again, the California Democratic party has humiliated Diane Feinstein by making it clear she would not get the party endorsement for Senate, forcing her to withdraw from that contest:
Citing a need for unity, Sen. Dianne Feinstein won’t seek the California Democratic Party endorsement she was unlikely to receive anyway in her re-election campaign.
“I am respectfully asking you to vote no endorsement in the U.S. Senate race,” Feinstein said in a “Dear Friend” letter to the 350-plus party executive board members who will vote on the endorsements July 14 in Oakland. “Republicans would like nothing more than to see Democrats fighting each other … at the exact time we need to come together and focus on the general election.”
Republicans, however, could still have a chance to see that Democrat-versus-Democrat brawl, since Los Angeles state Sen. Kevin de León has no intention of backing away from his effort to grab the party endorsement he nearly claimed in February.
The senator has spent many years building a good relationship with members of the state Democratic Party, and he would be honored to have their endorsement at the executive board meeting later this month,” de León spokesman Jonathan Underland said Thursday.
De León has little reason to back away from an endorsement battle with Feinstein. At the state party convention in San Diego earlier this year, the former state Senate leader trounced Feinstein in the bid for the June primary endorsement, winning 54 percent to just 37 percent for the four-term incumbent.
While that result fell short of the 60 percent needed for a formal endorsement, it showed just how far the party’s increasingly progressive rank and file has moved from Feinstein’s more moderate and pragmatic views.
For many of de León’s supporters, Feinstein’s announcement was little more than a face-saving measure after she realized that her chance of winning an outright endorsement was slim at best.
This in no way means that Diane Feinstein will lose the general election, only that the party in that state has moved so far left, liberal Diane Feinstein appears to be a conservative to them.
California is also ground zero for other big races this year:
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi could have their political careers defined by what happens Nov. 6 in their home state of California.
The Central Valley Republican and the San Francisco Democrat are fighting to win the House majority and, with it, the right to try to round up enough votes to become House speaker. And the majority could very easily swing on the outcome of up to 10 California seats, setting the stage for a very late night – and possibly days and weeks of drawn-out drama given the Golden State’s proclivity for counting its votes very slowly.
Since early last year both McCarthy, 53, and Pelosi, 78, realized that their state would host the largest number of contested House races, dedicating a large amount of time and resources to California, particularly a cluster of districts around Los Angeles and San Diego that sided with Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. Ever since House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., announced in April that he would retire, the McCarthy-Pelosi jousting in California has resulted in something akin to a shadow boxing match with a chance to make history.
If Republicans hold the majority and McCarthy moves up, he would be the first GOP speaker from west of Iowa and would give President Donald Trump a trusted ally in the post. If Democrats win the majority and Pelosi nails down the votes, she would become the first speaker to win, lose and reclaim the gavel since Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, in 1955.
And if the two of them end up leading their respective caucuses next year, they will be the first pair from the same state to serve concurrently as speaker and minority leader.
What Democrats thought was going to be a blue wave is quickly turning into a likely rout instead!
