LOS ANGELES _ Following months of intense speculation, Democratic California Senate leader Kevin de Leon officially kicked off his U.S. Senate campaign Wednesday at an event in downtown Los Angeles.
Appearing before a crowd of more than 100 supporters, de Leon played on the themes of change and bold action that he's embraced as a leader of California's resistance to President Donald Trump.
"We are living in unique times, facing unprecedented challenges that require new ideas and new energy," he told the crowd as many waved campaign signs. "The D.C. playbook is obsolete."
Supporters, many of them sporting purple shirts from the SEIU United Service Workers West union, replied in Spanish with chants of "We're in the fight!" and "Kevin de Leon is a champion!"
De Leon announced his challenge to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Sunday with a campaign video and an email to supporters in which he promised to fight a Trump administration that "wages war on our people and our progress."
But Wednesday's announcement served as an opening volley in what promises to be a bitter and expensive battle against Feinstein, who at 84 is making her sixth run for Senate.
"We can no longer afford to be polite or patient. ... We can't cross our fingers and hope that Trump can learn and change," de Leon said, referencing comments Feinstein made about the president in August at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. "Now is the time for a senator who is willing to stand up and be heard, not from the sidelines, but loud and proud from the front lines."
Their intraparty battle promises to be a study in contrasts.
Feinstein, a member of the Democratic old guard who has been in office since 1992, is known as a cautious consensus-seeker and was criticized by members of her own party when she urged "patience" with Trump.
De Leon, part of the party's ambitious younger generation, has taken center stage in Sacramento as a leader of California's "resistance" against the Trump administration's policies on immigration, climate change and education.
De Leon sought to highlight those differences, talking about how he was raised by a single mother with a third-grade education who made ends meet by cleaning houses.
"I saw how distant success can feel when you look and talk differently and don't even speak the same language," de Leon told his supporters, who included half a dozen of his legislative colleagues.
Speaking to reporters afterward, de Leon remarked that he doesn't have the "ability to pick up a pen and write myself a personal check. ... That is the contrast in this campaign, from someone who is a billionaire, to someone who grew up in the most humble neighborhoods in California."
State Sen. Toni Atkins, who was among de Leon's colleagues in the crowd, said Feinstein's work over the past 25 years "can't be questioned."
"But we are in a new day and a new time, and I think Kevin de Leon has shown the leadership to actually move an agenda forward," Atkins said. "He's got a good story for California, and he's got a good story for our place in history, and I think that's going to resonate."
