Just 19 days after her surprise appointment to the California Senate seat vacated due to the death of Dianne Feinstein, former labor activist and Emily’s List president Laphonza Butler announced she would not be a candidate for the full term that will begin in 2025. The decision reset the red-hot 2024 contest for the seat that her potential candidacy might have scrambled.
While we may never know the entire backstory of Butler’s demurral, it’s likely she took a long look at what it might have taken to succeed in the fast-approaching March 5 primary for a full term and adjudged the odds as too long, as Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak deduced:
She would have started flat-footed against a formidable field of contenders, including Democratic Reps. Adam B. Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, who collectively have already amassed tens of millions of dollars.
Butler, for her part, has not demonstrated particular fundraising prowess. Some familiar with her work at Emily’s List were underwhelmed with its financial ledger under her watch.
Also, political handicappers tended to overstate the advantage of Butler’s labor connections. Although she enjoys a number of personal connections, several unions had already committed to others in the race, or assumed a wait-and-see approach. It’s not hard to imagine much of organized labor staying neutral, or endorsing multiple candidates, had Butler belatedly entered the Senate contest.
As it is, the 44-year-old Butler can add “U.S. Senator” to her résumé, and if she chooses to pursue elected office in the future, she will not bear the animus of the existing Senate candidates and their supporters.
The candidate most immediately affected may be Oakland congresswoman Barbara Lee, who was passed over for the appointment Governor Gavin Newsom made after promising to choose a Black woman should the Feinstein seat be vacated before the end of the current term. Lee remains a long shot for surviving the primary (the top two finishers regardless of party will qualify for the November general election), which means the seat will likely be filled by a white candidate. But a Butler candidacy might have fatally cut into Lee’s voting base. Current front-runner Adam Schiff will obviously be pleased with any development that restores the status quo ante of the contest. And Katie Porter, the third House member in the contest, might have struggled to maintain her second-place standing had Butler gone all out to win the full term as an incumbent.
Perhaps the biggest losers in the wake of Butler’s decision are California’s struggling Republicans and their top candidate, baseball legend Steve Garvey, who need a deeply divided Democratic vote to claim second place in March and win a ticket to the general election. It could still happen if Republicans consolidate their vote behind Garvey, but it’s more likely Democrats will lock them out of the November contest, as they did in the 2016 and 2018 U.S. Senate elections in California.
Newsom, meanwhile, is probably delighted that he is no longer in the spotlight with respect to the Feinstein seat, having fulfilled his promise to appoint a Black woman to the Senate without upending the contest for a full term. He has other fish to fry in Sacramento and nationally, as his ill-disguised ambition for the White House survives another crisis.
