Dianne Feinstein, 89, the longest-serving woman in the Senate, is still not back in Washington after being hospitalized with shingles earlier this year. Her absence is holding up crucial judicial confirmations for the Biden administration, and has reignited questions about her mental acuity and ability to serve, as well as calls from prominent members of her own party to step down.
Feinstein’s future has refocused attention on an already huge 2024 election in Democratic politics — the race for her California Senate seat. Since Feinstein has announced that she will not seek reelection, the contest to replace her pits three of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable and influential lawmakers against each other in a standoff that could be one of the most expensive Senate races in history. Whoever that ends up being will be a stark contrast to Feinstein. And a California Senate seat is something like a beacon for Democratic politics, a signal of the will and identity of the country’s largest blue bastion.
The longstanding questions about Feinstein came to a head this month, after a series of stories questioned if she was still fit to serve. In February, she bowed to some pressure, saying she would retire at the end of her term, but the calls for her to step down early have only intensified since she left DC in early March.
Though Feinstein’s future remains in question, the fight to succeed her has been taking shape in the background for months. That star-studded (at least as far as politics goes) contest for Feinstein’s seat kicked off in January when Rep. Katie Porter, the darling of the modern progressive wing in Congress, announced her candidacy as California was enduring historic storms and flooding. Anti-Trump #Resistance hero Rep. Adam Schiff, who started his career as a moderate, followed with an announcement shortly thereafter, and a third candidate, Rep. Barbara Lee, a pioneering Black activist and the most liberal member of Congress,…
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