SAN FRANCISCO — Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is mulling a political comeback, Politico reported Thursday, citing several unnamed “GOP political insiders in California.”

The prospect of Schwarzenegger’s return to elected politics by entering the 2018 U.S. Senate race — possibly as an independent — is generating buzz in state Republican circles, “fueled by the former governor’s seeming ability to get under the skin of President Donald Trump on social media,” Politico said. Related Articles Proposition 16: Why some Asian Americans are on the front lines of the campaign against affirmative action

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Trump has recently exchanged caustic tweets with Schwarzenegger, who followed Trump as the host of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has not yet announced whether she will run for another six-year term. But jumping into the race “would give Arnold the stage to jam Trump for the next 16 months,’’ Politico quoted one Republican strategist as saying. It would also enable Schwarzenegger to draw a contrast with the president on key issues such as climate change, political reform, and immigration, Politico said.

The ex- governor’s spokesman, Daniel Ketchell, told the Bay Area News Group Thursday that Schwarzenegger is now focused on championing redistricting reform nationwide through the USC Schwarzenegger Institute — a cause he took up in his final years as governor.

“To say he is not in politics would not be correct because he is really pushing this,” Ketchell said.

As far as another run for office, he said, “We are keeping our options open.”

Schwarzenegger was elected governor in a 2003 election that recalled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger served until January 2011.

The Republican governor’s approval ratings fluctuated while he was in office and were as high as 63 percent in March 2007. But five months after he left office, a Field Poll found that three of four California voters surveyed had a negative image of Schwarzenegger in the wake of revelations he had fathered a boy with a former household staff member while married to TV journalist Maria Shriver.

Last Saturday, Trump took another shot at Schwarzenegger after he decided he wasn’t returning to the “The New Celebrity Apprentice” next year.