First, Rep. Loretta Sanchez emailed her supporters Tuesday announcing that two days later she would announce her candidacy for U.S. Senate in Santa Ana.
Then, her political advisers and Sanchez herself quickly backtracked, saying that she hadn’t made the decision to run yet. The email, they said, had gone out in error.
But on Wednesday her campaign consultant, Bill Carrick, said “a significant political announcement” would indeed be made at 11 a.m. Thursday.
It was a weird stutter-step start to a candidacy that could radically change the race for California’s first open U.S. Senate seat in 24 years.
Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, would become the second prominent Democrat in the contest after California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has won two statewide elections, racked up dozens of endorsements to succeed Sen. Barbara Boxer, and raised $2.5 million in the year’s first quarter.
“But who knows who is unassailable and who isn’t at this point?” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a University of Southern California political expert. “The money is there on Harris’ side at this point, and Sanchez is going to have to gear up very quickly in terms of organization and in terms of funding. The good news for Sanchez is there’s a lot of time to do that — and, if she’s lucky, a lot of time for Harris to stumble.”
Sanchez in recent months has met with Latino Democrats all over the state, amid worries that Harris seemed headed for an uncontested coronation that would marginalize their growing clout. Sanchez, Harris and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles — who also is contemplating a Senate run — all are scheduled to address the Chicano Latino Caucus at the California Democratic Party convention Saturday in Anaheim.
Among Republicans, Assemblyman Rocky Chavez, R-Oceanside, and former state GOP chairman Tom Del Beccaro, of Lafayette, have declared their candidacies, while former state GOP Chairman Duf Sundheim, of Los Altos Hills, is still mulling it over.
For Sanchez, “it’s a tough decision because she’s giving up a safe seat in the House for a chancy run at the Senate,” said Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Given Democrats’ strong edge in high-turnout statewide elections, this race “is over before it starts if there isn’t a strong second Democrat in the (November) runoff,” he said.
Because Sanchez and Becerra would woo many of the same Latino and Southern California voters, Sabato added, “I would be stunned if both of them ran. I would be surprised if neither of them ran.”
This “She has decided! No, she hasn’t! Yes, she has!” start doesn’t bode well for Sanchez, Sabato said.
“When a horse stumbles out of the gate, it almost never wins,” he said. “It’s highly embarrassing, and it’s a terrible start to what will be an uphill challenge anyway.”
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
