General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Looks like we have a progressive challenger for Dianne Feinstein in CA [View all]Hekate
(90,565 posts)...if Senator Feinstein is primaried and defeated. It means the Dems enter the GE bloodied and weakened, and more likely to allow a Repub to gain the seat.
What people outside California often fail to understand is the sheer diversity of this place. We have more people than the country of Canada. We are on the cusp of a nonwhite majority. Many Asians trend Republican, not Democratic. We have swathes of very conservative people: I mean who do you think sends Dana Rhorabacher and Darell Issa to Congress year after year? We have some some very liberal Democrats indeed, as well -- but someone like Nancy Pelosi comes from a very liberal city indeed.
Our Senators reflect a lot of that. When liberal Dem. Barbara Boxer retired, we had not one challenger, but several good people lined up to fill a vacancy, and were lucky to get Kamala Harris (who some here have complained about for being insufficiently POC, when what she is is very mixed race). But her GOP opponents will be back, challenging DiFi with lots of money to back them up.
Diane Feinstein strikes some here as "too old" and "too moderate." But she is a thoroughly reliable Democrat who gets re-elected in this state year after year. People can certainly sound her out about retirement plans, because if she retires it will be like Boxer -- it will give a bunch of good Democrats a chance to run for a vacancy, rather than one spoiler trying to unseat one of our best Dem Senators.
My question would be: who among us is willing to lose that seat to a Repub in order to unseat Feinstein -- and why would that be?