State Sen. Loni Hancock, right, kept her word
Wednesday when endorsing Sandre Swanson in SD9..

STATE SENATE |9TH DISTRICT | When Loni Hancock, the current holder of the Ninth State Senate District seat, announced Wednesday she was endorsing Sandre Swanson to succeed her in 2016, it should have come as no surprise.

The deal between the Oakland and Berkeley heavyweights was forged more than three years ago when each other’s political trajectories were on a collision course in 2012.

Sandre Swanson, termed out of the Assembly seat representing Oakland and Alameda, was seriously eyeing a intraparty run against Hancock’s re-election in the redrawn district. The potential race had politicos salivating, if not, for the novelty then of Democrats facing each other in the general election because of the new open primary process.

It didn’t happen because Swanson relented to voices within to party to sit out the race for an anticipated field clear of candidates in 2016.

In January 2012, Swanson officially endorsed Hancock and she vowed to return the favor. In a press release that included Swanson’s backing for Hancock, she said, “I endorse Sandre Swanson in his effort to run for the 9th Senate District in 2016. If I am fortunate enough to be re-elected, I can’t think of a better person to succeed me in the Senate.

Hancock apparently kept her word…to the letter. In a statement Wednesday, Hancock recycled nearly the exact same wording from 2012 to announce her endorsement of Swanson this time around.

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Nevertheless, the announcement is the first big news of what should be one of the headlining races of the 2016 campaign season in the East Bay and a feather in Swanson’s cap. Since being termed out of the Assembly in 2011, Swanson served in Oakland as deputy mayor in Jean Quan’s administration.

In addition, to Swanson, the race will likely include two other well-known progressives—former Assemblymember Nancy Skinner and Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan, who also served in the Assembly more than a decade ago.

For those still bruised (annoyed?) by the recent intraparty State Senate race in the Seventh District last month, next year’s campaign in the Ninth District will likely be different. Neither of three Democrats veer much from the progressive side of the political spectrum in contrast to the split seen between the labor-backed Susan Bonilla and the moderate Steve Glazer favored by business interests.

A better comparison to the Swanson/Skinner/Chan race next year is the 2012 Assembly race in the Eighteenth District between Rob Bonta, Abel Guillen and Joel Young, which Bonta won in a November nail bitter.