A parade of ambitious California public figures, who’ve spent years itching for a shot at the state’s top political offices, are anticipating a shake-up of the state’s political hierarchy that could begin in a matter of weeks with the possible retirement of Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. And some big names — including the mayor of Los Angeles — are already sizing up possible bids to succeed her.

Sources close to Boxer, 74, say the outspoken liberal senator will decide over the holidays whether to seek reelection in 2016 and will announce her plans shortly after the new year. Few of her friends believe she will run for a fifth term. Boxer has stopped raising money and is not taking steps to assemble a campaign. With Republicans taking over the Senate, she is about to relinquish her chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.


If she were to step aside, it would be the first big crack in the state’s upper political ranks in years. The last time the governorship was open was in 2010, when Jerry Brown, now 76, romped in a return to the job he first held more than three decades earlier. Boxer and California’s other senator, Democrat Dianne Feinstein, 81, were elected in 1992.

For a backlog of up-and-coming pols, their opportunity may finally be arriving — and it will be very hard to to pass up.

“There has been a bottleneck at the top,” said Mitchell Schwartz, a Democratic strategist who was Barack Obama’s California campaign director in 2008. “In a state of 37 million-plus [population] … elected officials either need to move up or they are out of the game and forgotten quickly.”

Democrat Eric Garcetti, the 43-year-old Los Angeles mayor, has had preliminary conversations about a possible campaign with Bill Carrick, a veteran political strategist in the state, according to one source. Carrick, who has served as Feinstein’s political adviser and helped guide Garcetti’s 2013 mayoral campaign, didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Garcetti spokesman, Jeff Millman, declined to address the discussions, saying only that the mayor “hopes and expects Senator Boxer will continue her strong leadership in the Senate.”

Others are being encouraged by supporters. At a New York City dinner last week sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters, liberal activists pressed Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge-fund manager and environmentalist from San Francisco, to consider a bid. Steyer, who poured over $70 million into this year’s midterm election, gave a coy nonanswer in response, according to one person familiar with the exchange.

Most of the attention, though, is expected to center on a pair of rising stars: state Attorney General Kamala Harris, 50, and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, 47, both Democrats. For years, politicos have buzzed about a potential showdown between the two. Both hail from Northern California and rose through the ranks at the same time. They even share the same campaign consultant: Averell “Ace” Smith, a longtime Hillary Clinton adviser and top political hand in the state. In November, Harris and Newsom were easily reelected.

But as anticipation of a Boxer retirement has grown, the two have gone out of their way in recent months to tamp down talk of a rivalry. In September, they held their first-ever joint fundraiser at a San Francisco restaurant, where they lavished praise on each other.

Many Democrats believe that either Harris or Newsom might run for Boxer’s seat, but not both, recognizing that a bitter primary could leave them damaged. One of them is likely to wait until 2018, when Brown will be termed out of office and Feinstein might step aside. Newsom, who waged a short-lived primary campaign for governor against Brown in 2009, has been open about wanting to run again for the top job.

“They aren’t going to tear each other up,” said Joe Cotchett, a prominent Northern California trial attorney who counts Harris and Newsom as friends.“I don’t know anyone that thinks they’re going to run against each other. … They’ll work something out.”

Boxer’s office declined to comment on the jockeying for her seat, or, for that matter, on her future plans. A spokesman, Zachary Coile, pointed to Boxer’s previous statements that she would announce her plans early next year. Boxer’s lack of fundraising — she has just $150,000 in her campaign account, a fraction of the $3.5 million she had at this point before her most recent campaign — has fueled the speculation that she will leave the Senate.

What is a near-certainty is that Democrats will keep the seat. Republicans have been shut out of every statewide office and lack a bench of strong candidates. In 2010, Republican Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, lost to Boxer by 10 percentage points. The same year, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman spent $144 million as the Republican nominee for governor and lost to Brown by 13 points.

With their quasi-celebrity status, statewide name ID and deep fundraising connections, either Harris or Newsom would enter the race as the front-runner, handicappers say. But with a prize as rare as a California Senate seat in play, it’s assured that a long line of other Democrats in the liberal-friendly state would be in the running, too.

Since Harris and Newsom are both from the Bay Area, it could create an opening for someone from the much more population-rich southern part of the state. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is often mentioned as a potential candidate, as is his successor, Garcetti.

Other possible candidates include Rep. Jackie Speier, incoming California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and John Chiang, the outgoing state controller.

Some in the state are even buzzing about the possibility that Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook chief executive and women’s advocate, might also jump in. A source close to her, however, said she “isn’t interested.”

As for Steyer, the wealthy environmentalist’s political consultant, Chris Lehane, wouldn’t say one way or the other.

“Tom has consistently said that he will consider the best ways to have the biggest impact,” Lehane wrote in an email.