While long-serving Senator Diane Feinstein is still on the fence about running for re-election, three California congresspeople have already declared. Representative Adam Schiff of California's 30th district, which covers Hollywood, Burbank, Pasadena, and a whole raft of places over in that northeastern part of Los Angeles, has announced his entry into the race. Schiff joins Representatives Katie Porter and Barbara Lee in not caring what serving Senator Diane Feinstein does next year.
Schiff, like his opponents, has been an incredible congressperson. I hope that they and any other candidates who vie for the seat use this as an example to discuss the issues important to Californians and not devolve into standard politics. There will be a Republican in the race, but they will not matter.
It was pretty inevitable that he would make the pitch. Senate seats in California tend to be hard to come by, and with Feinstein's age and reported cognitive decline, the fierce urgency of now is driving the early primary race, which is now between Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.
Schiff is banking on his national profile after leading the first impeachment against Donald Trump to lift him over the others. Whether that is enough remains to be seen.
For her part, Dianne Feinstein has said she won't make any decision about running in 2024 until 2024. By then, the race will have been distilled into a challengers' race, with little bandwidth for her candidacy. My guess is that she will, in fact, retire, but on her terms and her own timeline. She's entitled to that, but she really must retire, because she will be humiliated in the primary race.