Calif. AG Kamala Harris begins Senate campaign

California Attorney General Kamala Harris formally launched her campaign for the U.S. Senate and immediately pushed the nascent 2016 race to a new level.

"I want to be a voice for Californians," Harris said in an message to supporters posted on her website. "I will be a fighter for the next generation on the critical issues facing our country."

Harris is the first major candidate to officially declare she wants to succeed Sen. Barbara Boxer, a liberal who is retiring after four terms. The California attorney general is a charismatic Democratic who also happens to be multi-ethnic — her father is from Jamaica and her mother is of South Asian descent — and who has already won two statewide races.

"She's the immediate front-runner," said Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College. "Announcing so fast was a very shrewd move because it could keep other candidates out of the race."

Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer and several Democratic members of Congress are considering a campaign. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who represents an Orange County district, said Tuesday she is "seriously" looking at making the race.

With her announcement, Harris immediately began raising money for a race that is expected to be costly. Because of California's size, statewide candidates must spend heavily to run TV ads in some of the nation's most expensive media markets. California's unusual primary system, which allows the top two finishers to advance regardless of party affiliation, also could affect spending.

Villaraigosa, a former state Assembly speaker, can count on name recognition in California's most populous region and ties with labor unions. Los Angeles voters had a mixed view of Villaraigosa as he left the mayor's office in 2013, and his eight-year tenure coincided with high unemployment and the national recession.

Steyer said he'll decide soon on whether to run. "Washington needs to be shaken up and we need climate champions who will fight for the next generation," he wrote in an op-ed column for The Huffington Post.

Steyer, who spent $74 million of his own money trying to influence the 2014 midterm elections, could self-finance a campaign if he chose to do so. California voters, however, have not warmly received self-financing candidates, as seen most recently by Meg Whitman's failure in 2010 to win the California governor's race despite spending more than $119 million of her own money.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which typically stays out of primaries, is confident that the seat will stay in the party's hands and specifically cited Harris in a statement.

"With strong candidates like Kamala Harris, Democrats remain confident that we'll hold this seat and continue Barbara Boxer's long history of fighting for California," said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the campaign committee.

Although several Republicans are considering the race, Democrats enjoy a 15-point advantage in voter registration in California.

"The arithmetic in the state suggests it is an incredibly uphill battle for any Republican to run for statewide office," said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a public policy professor at the University of Southern California. "You've got to have somebody with name recognition and a whole lot of money."

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