What the Race To Replace Dianne Feinstein Says About 2028

The 2024 election cycle will be a partisan extravaganza on steroids. We will experience a competitive presidential race between Democratic candidate incumbent Joe Biden and his eventual GOP challenger, a fierce Democratic assault on the thin and dysfunctional GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and a strong Republican bid to erase the shaky Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.

However, the race to replace the late, great Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) appears to be a strictly internal Democratic affair, so it won’t add to the national partisan turmoil.

Yet, it will generate as much heat and get as much national media attention as any other Senate race since the outcome is likely a preview of the Democratic presidential race in 2028 and offers the possibility of significant generational change in the composition of the upper chamber of Congress. Feinstein’s permanent replacement will represent one in 10 Americans in the Senate alongside Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

Three major candidates have been running for Feinstein’s Senate seat since before she passed. All three — Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee — are Democratic members of the state’s delegation to the U.S. House, and they all have a claim to national fame.

Schiff became prominent as a lead prosecutor of former President Donald Trump during his first impeachment.Lee was the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Porter, a law professor before she was elected to Congress, has an uncanny ability to illustrate complicated policy issues with whiteboard presentations. 

All of them have prominent supporters. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), former House Speaker and a close friend of Feinstein’s, has endorsed Schiff. She is a prolific fundraiser, which may help explain his big financial advantage. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley and who may be a presidential candidate in 2028, is in Lee’s corner. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is supporting Porter, who she taught at Harvard Law.

The candidates will compete in a blanket primary in March, in which the two leading contestants, regardless of party, will earn a slot in the general election next November.

A poll conducted late in August for the Los Angeles Times and the University of California Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies puts Schiff and Porter in the top two spots with 20% and 17% of the vote, respectively.

Those two Democrats, both from Southern California, also have the most name recognition in the survey and the most cash as of the second quarter 2023 filing with the Federal Elections Commission. Lee, representing a district in the Bay Area, trails them with 7% of the vote. With a third of the electorate still undecided, the support gap between Lee and the top two contenders may be smaller than it appears but could be prohibitive if she doesn’t raise the money to build her name recognition, which lags.

Feinstein was 90 when she died, so her successor will represent a distinct generational change in the Senate. Porter is 49 are either would be a sharp break with the past and a breath of fresh air, given the average age of Senate members is 65. Lee, at 77, and Schiff, at 63, are also younger than was Feinstein. 

The wildcard in the race is the Senate’s newest member, Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), who was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to take Feinstein’s seat for the remainder of the term, ending next year. Butler, 44, is the president of EMILY’s List, which raises millions of dollars nationally and is “dedicated to electing Democratic pro-choice women to office.” She has also served as president of Service Employees International Union Local 2015 for more than a decade, as well as a corporate consultant working with Uber and an executive at AirBnb. She is a political strategist who helped manage Vice President Kamala Harris' 2020 presidential campaign.

So far, it's unclear whether Butler will enter the race to run for a full six-year term to replace the late senator. Butler is now the only Black female member and is the first openly LGBTQ+ senator from California.

Butler only has a few months to campaign before the primary, but her background suggests she could raise the money necessary to raise her name recognition. Her incumbency also gives her an advantage over her potential opponents, especially if she has the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. If she wins one of the two spots available in March, she would have eight months to build toward the November election.

Yet, the Senate primary may be just the first skirmish in the Democratic battle for president in 2028. As Butler takes her seat, the focus shifts to the governor who appointed her and the vice president who swore her into office. Newsom and Harris may be the Democrats’ next combatants in the race for the White House, and the two aspiring candidates could collide in the 2028 presidential primary in the Golden State, which would make it the decisive event on the campaign calendar. 

California has set trends for the rest of the union for decades. We may get a sense from California next year if, in four years, national Democrats are ready for generational change after a Biden presidency, whether the party of Barack Obama is prepared for another African-American nominee, and if Newsom, Harris or Khanna will emerge as the dominant force in the state which could select the Democratic nominee in 2028.

Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster, CEO of Bannon Communications Research and the host of the “aggressively progressive” political podcast, “Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.”