Northern California Democrats among strongest contenders for Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat (w/video)

California Sen. Barbara Boxer’s announcement Thursday that she will not seek re-election in 2016 set political wheels spinning throughout California to determine her successor, with two Democratic heavyweights dominating the field of likely contenders in a solidly blue state.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris top most lists of potential candidates and are not expected to battle one another, while the Republican political bench lacks a star with statewide appeal.

“They’re both going to mull it over; they’ll come to some agreement,” said David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political scientist.

Harris, 50, may be the more likely candidate to succeed Boxer, 74, a 32-year veteran of Congress who began her Washington career with her election to House of Representatives in 1982 representing Marin and Sonoma counties. Newsom, 47, is thought to be aiming for the governor’s office or the Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein, 81, who is up for re-election in 2018 and hasn’t announced her intentions.

Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in California since Pete Wilson captured his second term in 1988 and party members currently hold no statewide office, despite the GOP’s sweeping national gains in the November election.

Given those circumstances, “it’s hard to see who could make a serious run” for the Senate in two years from the GOP ranks, said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican Party policy analyst.

A billionaire capable of funding his or her own campaign could emerge, but Pitney noted the case of Meg Whitman, who spent $144 million of her own money in losing the 2010 gubernatorial race to Jerry Brown.

McCuan said the Republicans’ best bet might be a non-politician akin to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “without the baggage,” who could “build a better image” for the party going forward. Boxer’s post is “not a competitive seat” for the GOP, he said.

The Democrats have a billionaire contender in environmental activist Tom Steyer, who McCuan said may talk about a candidacy but ultimately won’t run and is better off working behind the scenes.

Newsom lives in Marin County, Harris is an Oakland native, and Steyer resides in San Francisco.

The upshot is that Northern California Democrats in 2016 stand a good chance to retain the state’s three top jobs on Capitol Hill, with both Senate seats and San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader.

Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor, and Pelosi both live in Pacific Heights, while Pelosi also has a home and vineyard in Napa County. Boxer, who now lives in Rancho Mirage in Riverside County, is tied to the North Bay, where she served on the Marin County Board of Supervisors for six years before winning the House seat in 1982.

In 1992, the “Year of the Woman,” Boxer and Feinstein both won their Senate seats, and Lynn Woolsey, a Petaluma city councilwoman, replaced Boxer in the House in 1993. Woolsey retired after 20 years in 2013.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who now holds Boxer’s former 2nd District House seat - with a constituency altered by redistricting - on Thursday hailed Boxer as a “passionate champion for the environment and Democratic values,” including women’s health, the rights of minorities and the interests of “working families and the middle class.”

The Bay Area’s connection to congressional power could be upset if any of the second-tier Democratic contenders wins Boxer’s seat. That list, according to McCuan, includes Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Latina from Orange County who could bill herself as “carrying on the Boxer legacy,” and state Treasurer John Chiang of Torrance, who got the most votes of any statewide officer in November.

Chiang’s drawback is that “no one knows who he is,” McCuan said.

There are any number of ambitious California House Democrats chafing at service in a Republican-controlled chamber, Pitney said, but they all would have trouble parlaying a small constituency into statewide success.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the current mayor, Eric Garcetti, are also on the list of potential Senate candidates. But Garcetti, who took office in 2013, said Thursday he won’t run for the Senate, and Villaraigosa is “thinking more about governor” in 2018, Pitney said.

It probably doesn’t matter where a Democratic senator comes from, he said, because the Bay Area can’t be ignored, owing to its cache of Democratic voters and donor wealth.

Geography generally doesn’t matter much, McCuan agreed, except that a senator can get involved in local issues. In the North Bay, examples include Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the controversial oyster farm that recently shut down in Point Reyes National Seashore and Boxer’s legislation more than a decade ago that cleared the way for the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria to develop a casino on land it eventually acquired.

Boxer, who said in her announcement Thursday that she is “never going to retire,” is unlikely to fade from the political scene, McCuan said. Should a Democrat win the presidency in 2016, Boxer would “be on the short list” for a federal appointment, such as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, McCuan said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.