Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, is expected to announce her imminent retirement to become president of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.
This will open up a special House election, presuming the state of California can afford one. Harman’s seat is a reliably Democrat district, however, and redistricting is unlikely to make it any more competitive. It is currently scored D+12 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index; Obama won it by 30 percentage points. In 2010, Harman won 59.7 percent to Republican Mattie Fein’s 34.7 percent. The Libertarian candidate, Herb Peters, took 5.6 percent.
In a special election, anything can happen; look at Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Charles Djou in Hawaii, etc.
Ironically, as of noon, there is no word about this news on the site of Newsweek, which is owned by Harman’s husband, Sidney Harman.