De Leon’s plan to take on Feinstein begins with his finishing second
ROSEVILLE — As the leader of the California Senate, Kevin de Leon negotiated the fine points of a landmark effort on climate change. He helped balance the state budget. He wrote the California immigration law that’s drawn the ire of President Donald Trump.
But Democratic voters who applaud those efforts don’t necessarily know that he was the one behind them. They may like the song on the radio, in a sense, but they don’t know the singer.
“It’s been a challenge,” De Leon said. “But once people make the connection with me, they say: ‘It’s time for a change. I’m with you.’”
That change would be historic, not seen in the last halfcentury of California politics: a candidate taking on and beating a U.S. senator from the same party.
The incumbent, Dianne Feinstein, has served since 1992. Few politicians in the state have her level of name recognition among voters and certainly not De Leon, elected to the Legislature in 2006 but who has never appeared on a statewide ballot.
Faced with that daunting prospect, the Los Angeles Democrat has a different goal for the June 5 primary: win enough votes for a secondplace finish. Under California’s unique primary rules, De Leon simply has to outpace the other 30 people on the ballot.
“Under the right circumstances, the top-two primary gives the underdog candidate a second bite at the apple,” said Darry Sragow, publisher of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan campaign guide. “It’s the second game in a twogame series. You start fresh.”
That his insurgent effort has a shot at pulling it off is a testament to what’s missing in the Senate race: a standard bearer for California Republicans. Had GOP leaders not abandoned the contest — if even one of the 11 Republicans on the ballot had sought the state party endorsement — De Leon’s candidacy would likely be all but over. Few campaign watchers believe he could have survived even a tepid but wellorganized effort to consolidate Republican voters behind a single candidate.
Instead, the race seems likely to be left to Democrats, a choice between Feinstein’s vaunted legacy and De Leon’s ambitious agenda.
“It energizes me,” said De Leon, 51. “When I listen to voters’ hopes, goals, their complaints, I have an opportunity to share with them who I am and what my values are.”
He has spent the winter and spring foraging for support from Democratic activists in communities across the state, asking for help one vote at a time after a 12-year career in the Legislature. On a recent weeknight, De Leon was in the Sacramento suburbs and waiting for a chance to speak following others — a school board hopeful, a Superior Court judge candidate — to a meeting of local Democratic leaders in Placer County.
There, in a stuffy room where the fax machine was louder than the microphone and the audience fidgeted during the dinner hour, he hoped to win over the local party leaders who could help spread the word about his candidacy. There was little to suggest the spotlight of a statewide campaign.
“You’ve got 60 seconds left,” said C.J. Jawahar, chairman of the Placer County Democrats, cutting off De Leon’s pitch long before crescendo.
“Sure, of course,” he said with a smile and then skipping ahead in his prepared remarks. “I want to be respectful of your time.”
Few state lawmakers have as diversified a public policy portfolio, which meant there was plenty to talk about. De Leon helped craft the law requiring California to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, as well as last year’s bipartisan agreement extending cap-and-trade, the program that actually reduces those emissions. He has called for the state to move to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045 and convinced the state’s public pension systems to divest from more than a dozen coal-mining companies.
After several years of wrangling, De Leon convinced Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 to agree to background checks on ammunition sales and a ban on largecapacity magazines, part of a package of measures pushed forward in the wake of mass shootings. it reached its