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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26287 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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Just saw news of Dianne Feinstein's death. So does this mean an election to fill her vacant seat? How soon? Likely candidates? Replaced by a more progressive (more woke) or a more liberal (not woke) Democrat? Thoughts and opinions on this?

Newsome appoints someone who then has to win re-election in 2024. This person will probably be more progressive than Feinstein, but almost certainly not AOC level. He may or may not consider race and gender, but is probably going to pick someone who is a known quantity to California’s political machine.

By "win re-election", do you mean against another Democrat or against a Republican? I was under the impression that absent extremely-weird circumstances California was locked-down Democrat.

The appointment does not supersede the usual election formalities. So there will be a primary and general election. It's just that, as you note, primary opponents will be discouraged and the general will reliably elect the Dem candidate. It's not like a Harlem Globetrotters game; they actually do have to hold a real election.

Keeping in mind that California is so Dem controlled and has a top-two general so the general would be between the top two candidates from the open primary and would both very likely be Dems.

Cali might have different dynamics, but as a general rule of thumb appointed senate seats have more competitive primaries in the party that the appointee belongs to than a typical incumbent seat.

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