Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said Monday night that she will soon reveal whether she plans to seek re-election, and not next year, as she previously indicated.
Feinstein, 89, told a reporter for Raw Story only last week that she wouldn’t reveal her 2024 plans until next year. But on Monday, she contradicted herself, and indicated that an announcement could be coming in the next few months.
“You’ll be hearing, soon,” Feinstein told Bloomberg News. “In the spring sometime. Not in the winter. I don’t announce in the winter.”
Though Feinstein’s future remains uncertain, the whiff of a potential vacancy in a reliably blue state has Democrats in a frenzy.
Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), 49, publicly announced that she will run for Senate earlier this month, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), 62, has also declared he will run. Porter told MSNBC that she reached out to Feinstein privately before she made her announcement, and Schiff has publicly claimed that Feinstein was aware he planned to run.
“I want to make sure that everything I did was respectful of her and that I did so with her knowledge and her blessing,” Schiff told the Associated Press.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who like Feinstein is from northern California, reportedly told members of the Congressional Black Caucus that she would also declare her candidacy. When asked by reporters about her private comments, Lee said that she would only announce her plans “when appropriate.”
Given her age, Lee, 76, would position herself as a “transitional” candidate who would only serve one term, a source familiar with her candidacy told the San Franciso Chronicle.