LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO
California Democrats are anxiously awaiting for the March 5 primary to be finished. This year, the Golden State has joined the "Super Tuesday" club – states that hold their primaries on the same day. There will be 16 of them on Super Tuesday 2024, from Alabama to Virginia, including Texas. Millions of voters will choose their candidates for the various positions up for grabs in the November 5 elections, from president to local councils, courts and school boards.
In California, referendums must also be included, a prerogative of the participatory democracy in place in the country's most populous state. In San Francisco, voters will decide on March 5 whether to reinstate algebra by the eighth grade in public schools. Accused of reinforcing racial inequalities, algebra was banned in 2014. In 2022, a report by Stanford researchers showed that the disappearance of this branch of mathematics had not closed the achievement gap. On the other hand, many parents had transferred their children to private schools.
On the presidential front, there's no suspense in California, any more than elsewhere. Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden are assured of their party's nomination. No surprises are expected from the congressional candidates either. Nancy Pelosi, the representative of San Francisco's 11th congressional district, is seeking re-election at 83, and none of her seven opponents are in a position to take the seat she has held since 1987. Following her husband's hammer attack in October 2022, some in political circles had assumed that she would retire. Far from it: The former speaker of the House of Representatives is running again to "defend democracy," she explained.
The race on everyone's mind is the one between two Democratic stars for the Senate seat left vacant by the passing of Dianne Feinstein, the doyenne of the upper chamber, who died in September 2023 at the age of 90. A costly, fratricidal contest that Democrats would gladly have done without. The stakes are high. With a population of nearly 40 million, California sends just two senators to Washington (the same number as North Dakota and its 775,000 residents). The winner is practically guaranteed to hold the position for life (unless he or she is called to higher office like Vice President Kamala Harris, California's senator for only four years, from 2017 to 2021).
The favorite is Adam Schiff, 63, the representative of California's 30th district, which includes Hollywood. A former prosecutor with a slightly staid demeanor, he exudes righteousness and reason. In high school, at Danville in the San Francisco Bay Area, his classmates singled him out as the student "most likely to succeed." He proved them right.
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