What challenge? Feinstein romps ahead in California primary with turns to the left. [View all]

[DonViejo]

By David Weigel
June 3 at 6:32 PM

SACRAMENTO — It was supposed to be a defining battle for the Democratic Party’s future, Cali­fornia’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein against her party’s fired-up activist left. Amid predictions of a Democratic civil war, one of the state’s largest labor unions endorsed her opponent and urged voters to reject “establishment politics.”

Yet days before Tuesday’s top-two primary, Feinstein is cruising toward what even her field of opponents acknowledge will be a giant victory. Her best-known opponent, state Sen. Kevin de León (D), who charged into the race last year on a message of generational change, has found himself ­challenged by a little-known ­Republican for the second spot in the November runoff, as lesser-known liberals fracture the anti-Feinstein vote.

Feinstein has bent the race her way by portraying herself as a reliable liberal in the Senate minority — and by moving further left and co-opting issues key to the state’s Democrats. And as she prepares to turn 85, she has allied herself with the party’s young activists.

In the campaign’s final stretch, Feinstein has run as an opponent of the death penalty and a defender of the state’s marijuana industry, new stances that have cut off lines of attack by de León, while drawing no perceptible backlash for their timing.

“I don’t want to not grow. I don’t want to not learn,” Feinstein told reporters last week at a roundtable on the Trump administration’s proposal to block federal funding of Planned Parenthood. “The world changes. We change. I think that’s what should make me an attractive senator, particularly to young people.”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/what-challenge-feinstein-romps-ahead-in-california-primary-with-turns-to-the-left/2018/06/03/046323fc-65bf-11e8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html