The 2018 United States Senate election in California took place on November 6, 2018, to elect a member of the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
to represent
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, concurrently with
other elections to the United States Senate,
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative ...
to the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
, and various
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
and
local elections
In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...
.
Under California's non-partisan blanket primary law, all candidates appear on the same ballot, regardless of party. In the primary, voters may vote for any candidate, regardless of their party affiliation. In the California system, the top two finishers — regardless of party — advance to the general election in November, even if a candidate receives a majority of the votes cast in the primary election.
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
and
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
have similar "
jungle primary
A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for the same elected office run against each other at once, regardless of the political party. Partisan elections are, on the other hand, segregated by political party ...
" style processes for U.S. Senate elections, as does
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
for U.S. Senate special elections.
The candidate filing deadline was March 8, 2018, and the primary election was held on June 5, 2018.
Four-term
Democratic incumbent
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seeking re-ele ...
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...
won re-election in
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
with 63% of the vote, taking the record for the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history, with 7.86 million votes.
Feinstein, at the time, was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She turned 85 years old in 2018, leading some to speculate that she would retire in January 2019, as her long-time colleague
Barbara Boxer did in
January 2017. However, Feinstein ran for reelection to her fifth consecutive term, winning 44.2% of the vote in the top-two primary; she faced Democratic challenger Kevin De León in the general election, who won 12.1% of the primary vote.
For the second time since direct elections to the Senate began after the passage of the
Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, no Republican appeared on the general election ballot for U.S. Senate in California. The highest Republican finisher in the primary won only 8.3 percent of the vote, and the 10 Republicans only won 31.2 percent of the vote among them.
In the general election,
Feinstein Feinstein, Finestein ( yi, פֿײַנשטײַן, he, פיינשטיין, russian: Файнштейн, "Fajnsztajn", "Fajnsztejn" in Polish spelling) or anglicized as Finestone, meaning "fine stone", that is gemstone, is a compound surname of G ...
defeated
De León by an eight-point margin, 54% to 46%. This was Feinstein's closest election since
1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...
.
Candidates
Democratic Party
Declared
*
Kevin de León
Kevin Alexander Leon (born December 10, 1966), known professionally as Kevin de León and colloquially as KDL, is an American politician serving as the Los Angeles City Council member for district 14 since 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, ...
,
President pro tempore of the California State Senate
* Adrienne Nicole Edwards, Vice Chairwoman on the HDT Community Development Foundation board
*
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...
, incumbent U.S. Senator
* Pat Harris, attorney
* Alison Hartson, national director of
Wolf PAC
* David Hildebrand, legislative analyst
* Herbert G. Peters, retired aerospace engineer and candidate for U.S Senate in California in 2016
* Douglas Howard Pierce
* Gerald Plummer
* Donnie O. Turner, Air Force veteran
Withdrawn
* Topher Brennan
*
John Melendez
John Edward Melendez (born October 4, 1965), also known as Stuttering John, is an American radio personality, comedian, singer, actor, television writer, announcer, and podcast host.
He is best known for being on ''The Howard Stern Show'' from ...
, television writer and radio personality
* Steve Stokes, candidate for the U.S. Senate in
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...
Declined
*
Ana Kasparian, co-host of ''
The Young Turks
''The Young Turks'' (TYT) is an American progressive news commentary show on YouTube that additionally appears on selected television channels. TYT serves as the flagship program of the TYT Network, a multi-channel network of associated web s ...
''
*
Joe Sanberg
Joseph N. Sanberg (born July 12, 1979) is an American entrepreneur. He is co-founder of Aspiration, Inc., an online banking and investing firm, and an early investor in meal delivery service Blue Apron. He is also the founder of CalEITC4Me, a Ca ...
, entrepreneur and investor
*
Tom Steyer
Thomas Fahr Steyer (born June 27, 1957) is an American climate investor, businessman, hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist, and liberal activist. Steyer is the co-founder and co-chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, founder and ...
, hedge fund manager
*
Cenk Uygur
Cenk Kadir Uygur ( ; ; born March 21, 1970) is a Turkish-American progressive political commentator, media host, attorney, journalist, and politician. Uygur is the creator of ''The Young Turks'', an American left-wing, sociopolitical, progressi ...
, host of ''The Young Turks''
Republican Party
Declared
* Arun K. Bhumitra, businessman
* James P. Bradley, businessman
* Jack Crew, bus driver
* Erin Cruz, published author
*
Rocky De La Fuente
Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente Guerra (born October 10, 1954) is an American businessman and politician. A perennial candidate, De La Fuente was the Reform Party nominee in the 2016 and 2020 United States presidential elections. He also appeared on ...
, entrepreneur and perennial candidate
* Jerry Joseph Laws, candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2016
* Patrick Little, neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier
* Kevin Mottus, candidate for the U.S Senate in 2016
* Mario Nabliba, scientist
* Tom Palzer, activist, retired city planner and candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2016
* Paul Allen Taylor, businessman
Withdrawn
* Donald R. Adams, businessman
* Gary Coson
* John Estrada
* Timothy Charles Kalemkarian,
perennial candidate
A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates' existence lies in the fact that in some countries, there are no laws that limit a number of times a person can ...
*
Ernie Konnyu
Ernest Leslie Konnyu (born May 17, 1937) is an American businessman and former Republican U.S. Representative from Silicon Valley, California, 12th congressional district, serving one term from 1987 to 1989. He had previously been a California ...
, former U.S. Representative
* Caren Lancona, businesswoman
* Jazmina Saavedra, businesswoman and activist
* Stephen James Schrader, veteran
Declined
*
Kevin Faulconer,
Mayor of San Diego
The mayor of the City of San Diego is the official head and chief executive officer of the U.S. city of San Diego, California. The mayor has the duty to enforce and execute the laws enacted by the San Diego City Council, the legislative branch. ...
*
Caitlyn Jenner, 1976 Olympic gold medalist and television personality
*
Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor and former
Governor of California
*
Ashley Swearengin, former Mayor of
Fresno
Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...
Libertarian Party
Declared
* Derrick Michael Reid, retired attorney and engineer and candidate for president in 2016
Green Party
Declared
* Michael V. Ziesing (write-in)
[http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov//statewide-elections/2018-primary/cert-list-write-in-candidates.pdf ]
Peace and Freedom Party
Declared
*
John Thompson Parker
No party preference
Declared
* Colleen Shea Fernald, perennial candidate
* Tim Gildersleeve, businessman and researcher
* Rash Bihari Ghosh
* Michael Fahmy Girgis
* Don J. Grundmann, California Constitution Party chairman and perennial candidate
(
Constitution Party)
* Jason M. Hanania
* David Moore (
Socialist Equality Party)
* Lee W. Olson
* Ursula M. Schilling (write-in)
* Ling Ling Shi, evangelist
Withdrawn
* Jerry Leon Carroll
*
Michael Eisen
Michael Bruce Eisen (born April 13, 1967) is an American computational biologist and the editor-in-chief of the journal eLife. He is a professor of genetics, genomics and development at University of California, Berkeley. He is a leading advocate o ...
, biologist
* Charles Junior Hodge
* Richard Thomas Mead
* Clifton Roberts (Humane Party)
Notes
Primary election
Endorsements
Fundraising
Polling
;with Timothy Charles Kalemkarian, Caren Lancona, John Melendez, and Stephen Schrader
;with Tom Steyer
;with John Cox
;with Xavier Becerra, Kevin Faulconer, Brad Sherman, Eric Swalwell, and Ashley Swearingin
Results
Democratic candidates won a combined total of 4,231,444, Republican candidates 2,216,223 votes, and other candidates 223,053 votes.
General election
Debates
Complete video of debate October 17, 2018
Endorsements
Fundraising
Predictions
Because of California's top-two runoff system, the seat was guaranteed to be won/held by a Democrat since the initial primary produced two Democratic candidates.
Polling
;with Feinstein, de León, and Tom Steyer
;with Feinstein, de León, and John Cox
Results
The race had an
undervote An undervote occurs when the number of distinct choices selected by a voter in a contest is less than the maximum number allowed for that contest or when no selection is made for a single choice contest.
In a contested election, an undervote can be ...
of around 1.3 million votes compared to the
gubernatorial election
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
, likely by Republican voters choosing neither candidate. De León won many of the same counties and congressional districts won by Republican gubernatorial nominee John Cox, as many voters may have expressed opposition to the incumbent senator. No county voted for both Feinstein and Cox. Congressional districts
39,
45, and
48 were the only congressional districts that voted for both Feinstein and Cox.
[https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2018-general/ssov/governor-congressional.pdf ]
Results by county
Results by county.
Cyan represents counties won by de León.
References
External links
Candidatesat
Vote Smart
Vote Smart, formerly called Project Vote Smart, is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in s ...
Candidatesat
BallotpediaCampaign financeat
FECCampaign financeat
OpenSecrets
OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) ...
;Official campaign websites
Dianne Feinstein (D) for SenateKevin de León (D) for Senate
{{2018 United States elections
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...