2016 United States Senate election in California
The 2016 United States Senate election in California was held on November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of California, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
See also: 2016 United States Senate elections
Under California's nonpartisan 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 vote in the primary election. Washington and Louisiana have similar "jungle primary" style processes for senators.
Incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer decided to not run for reelection to a fifth term.[1] This was the first open seat Senate election in California since 1992, when Boxer was first elected.[2] In the primary on June 7, 2016, California Attorney General Kamala Harris and U.S. Representative Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats, finished in first and second place, respectively, and contested the general election. For the first 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 the U.S. Senate in California. The highest Republican finisher in the primary won only 7.8 percent of the vote, and the 10 Republicans only won 27.9 percent of the vote among them.[3]
In the general election, Harris defeated Sanchez in a landslide, carrying 54 of the state's 58 counties, including Sanchez's home county of Orange, although Sanchez held Harris to a margin of less than 1% in the Central Valley counties of Kern and Merced. Harris served in the Senate for roughly 4 years as she resigned after being elected Vice President in 2020.
Background[edit]
Barbara Boxer was reelected with 52.1% of the vote in 2010 against Republican Carly Fiorina. Toward the end of 2014, Boxer's low fundraising and cash-on-hand numbers led to speculation that she would retire.[4][5] On January 8, 2015, she announced that she would not run for reelection.[1]
General election[edit]
Fundraising[edit]
The following are Federal Election Commission disclosures through the reporting period ending March 31, 2016.
Analysis[edit]
Harris stepped down from her Senate seat on January 18, 2021, two days before her inauguration as Vice President. This makes Harris the first US Senator elected to a full six-year term since Barack Obama in 2008 to not finish what would be her sole term. On December 22, 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom appointed California secretary of state Alex Padilla to serve the remainder of Harris' term.[182] Although Harris no longer occupies this Senate seat, she became President of the Senate on January 20, 2021, by virtue of her election as vice president.
Harris is the second incumbent US Senator from this seat to be elected vice president, the first being Richard Nixon in 1952.