California U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

91 Days Until Election Day

California U.S. Senate- special and regular

Status: Democrat Incumbent

2020 Presidential Result: Blue State (West)

Outlook: Safe Democrat

This year's Senate election in the Golden State will not be much of a contest, but for one political party, at least they will be able to take part in the competition. 

For the first time in a decade, Republicans managed to make the general election in California. Under the state's electoral system, all candidates run together in the June primary, with the top two advancing to November. The state had already moved into solid bastion territory for Democrats in 2012 and nothing has happened to change that, although Republicans will compete to hold or try to take over some competitive U.S. House races.

Technically, there are two elections happening here. One is a special election to finish the term of now Vice President Kamala Harris, with the winner sworn right after the election. The other is for the full six year term. There is no reason to believe there will be any difference in the results and my classification is for both elections.

When Harris was elected Vice President, it fell on Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom to pick a Senator from their party to replace her. Some thought he might be inclined to pick an African-American woman, such as Congresswoman Karen Bass, herself a Biden VP contender for the vacancy of the country's only black (and also half Indian-American) female U.S. Senator. At the time, there would have been just two African-American Senators, one of each party.

However, Newsom instead chose Alex Padilla, then the Secretary of State. An African-American woman was picked by Newsom to replace Padilla in Sacramento and there was only some brief grumbling over his not picking a black woman. (Bass is now a finalist in the November election for Los Angeles Mayor.) 

Padilla had been a long time ally of Newsom, and made sense politically for a few reasons. For one thing, he was from Los Angeles, while Newsom and the state's previous Senators going back to the early '90s were all from the Bay Area. Most significantly, the son of Mexican immigrants is the first Hispanic Senator in California history.The Latino community in California has increased in political power over that of African-Americans, and has remained reliably Democrat thus far, even as some other states have seen a recent movement towards the GOP.

 

The new Senator has not made too many headlines nationally but could become more prominent after the election. Padilla took 55 percent of the primary vote, with some other Democrat contenders also winning a few percentage points. Nobody of any political stature stepped up to run against Padilla, or to try to get him into a November all Democrat general election. Billionaire businessman Dan O'Dowd entered the race as a Democrat. He appeared to focus almost exclusively on the dangers of computers and self-driving cars and won just three percent of the statewide primary vote, with another Democrat even edging him out.

 

Padilla's opponent will be a somewhat familiar one. Republican Mark Meuser had a fairly easy time winning a second place primary finish with 22 percent of the vote. At attorney and businessman from Southern California, Meuser is heavily underfunded in this contest, but is running as an outspoken conservative with a libertarian edge. This is not the first time that he has run for office. Most recently, Meuser lost the 2018 general election for Secretary of State by a margin of 64-36 to none other than Alex Padilla.

The final spread in this year's Senate elections featuring the two should wind up being very similar to that result.

U.S. Senate races predicted thus far:

2 D (1 Safe, 1 Leans), 3 R (2 Safe, 1 Likely)

Total with predictions thus far:

38 D (36 Holdover, 1 Safe, 1 Leans) 32 R (29 Holdover, 2 Safe. 1 Likely)