He has all the credentials the social justice warriors are looking for.
Via Mercury News:
Setting up a bruising intra-party battle between a left-leaning state leader and a veteran of California politics, state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León announced Sunday that he would challenge U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 2018.
De León will be Feinstein’s first major Democratic opponent since she was elected to the Senate in 1992.
“The state has changed significantly over the past 25 years, and we’re long overdue for a real debate on the issues, priorities and leadership the voters want from their senator,” De León said in an interview Sunday morning. “California deserves to have a choice.”
Feinstein, who said last week she will run for re-election, has racked up declarations of support from a host of top California Democrats.
But liberal activists who accuse her of not being tough enough on President Donald Trump have been waiting for a progressive like De León, who is known for his advocacy for single-payer health care, climate change measures and California’s recently passed “sanctuary state” bill.
“You’ll see a clash, which is in part generational, in part ideological, in part style,” said Bill Whalen, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “She’s not one for theatrics or angry denunciations.”
De León, 50, grew up in San Diego as the son of a single mother from Guatemala, and dropped out of college to work as a community organizer with an immigrant rights group. He later graduated from Pitzer College in Claremont.
He has represented Los Angeles in the state Assembly and Senate since 2006, and served as Democratic leader in the Senate for three years. The first Latino to lead the Senate in more than a century, he will be termed out of office and won’t be able to run for re-election in 2018.[…]
A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll found that while Feinstein, 84, has high approval ratings, a majority of likely California voters would prefer her to retire and not run again. She was booed earlier this year in San Francisco when she urged patience for Trump and said he “could be a good president” if he changed his approach.