Like the California governor’s race, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bid for re-election will come down to a race for second place in Tuesday’s primary ballot, with the incumbent holding a strong lead in polls and a host of challengers vying to join her in the November general election.
Thanks to the state’s top-two primary system, the top two vote-getters in the primary will advance to the November runoff, regardless of party affiliation.
A recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found Feinstein with support from 36 percent of registered voters, with Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, placing a distant second at 11 percent. But with Republican James P. Bradley at striking distance of 7 percent, and a total of 25 percent of all voters undecided — compared to 7 percent in the governor’s race — de Leon isn’t entirely assured of a second-place finish despite being Feinstein’s most-visible challenger.
After Bradley there is a long list of candidates, both Democratic and Republican, with no more than a small percentage of support, according to the recent poll. A total of 32 candidates are on the ballot.
Feinstein has represented California in the Senate since 1992 and is considered by many political analysts to be a centrist Democrat, although she appears to have moved to the left on some issues during the campaign as de Leon has attempted to position himself as the more progressive choice.
Feinstein used be in favor of the death penalty and is now opposed to it. She also used to oppose recreational marijuana but now supports it, and her shifts on both issues are seen as an abandonment of her image as a tough-on-crime soldier in the war on drugs.
Feinstein is perhaps best known as a strong advocate for gun control and for being the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004. She has made gun control a focus of her current campaign as the issue has been a national talking point in the aftermath of several mass shootings.
De Leon represents the state Senate’s 24th District, which encompasses downtown and East Los Angeles. He has sought to position himself as the more liberal, more progressive choice for Democrats, and in particular one who will be a tougher critic and enemy of President Donald Trump.
De Leon, the first Latino president pro tem of the California Senate in more than a century, has seized on comments that Feinstein made when she said voters should have “patience” with Trump and that she still hoped he could be a “good president.” De Leon has said the comments, and Feinstein’s reputation as a pragmatic centrist, make her the wrong choice to challenge Trump on immigration and other issues, as the president is deeply unpopular in California.
Bradley’s success in polls had confounded some political experts, as little is known about him and he has raised little money. Why he has stood out among Republican voters is unclear. Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data, opined that Bradley’s support in an early UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll was because it listed the candidates in alphabetical order, and he was the first GOP candidate with “an Anglo-sounding name” and a respectable-sounding job of chief financial officer, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Bradley himself told The Bee he was “shocked” at the poll, but his support held in last week’s IGS poll, which found him still leading all other Republicans despite the names appearing in a different order.