At 8 p.m. the Associated Press called the race for California's open U.S. Senate seat for Attorney General Kamala Harris. It wasn't a huge surprise.

Harris led challenger Loretta Sanchez, a Democratic U.S. Representative from north-central Orange County, by wide margins in polls. The latest Public Policy Institute of California poll had Harris ahead by 22 points among likely voters.

“We are so proud that Kamala Harris will be California’s newest U.S. senator,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement tonight. “As California’s attorney general, she dedicated herself to empowering women and families and clearly understands that this means fighting to protect and expand reproductive freedom.”

The race pitted Democrat against Democrat, woman against woman, minority against minority.  And both candidates were on the same page on many major issues. Both were in favor of a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people in the country illegally, both were for working out the kinks in Obamacare, and both were for tightening the government's grip on the ability of citizens to obtain firearms.

Sanchez came into the race with antiterror and military expertise. She's a  member of the House Committee on Homeland Security and of the House Armed Services Committee.

Harris is a lifelong prosecutor who started in San Francisco. She helped negotiate a settlement with Volkswagen over its emissions cheating, and she's prosecuted multinational gangs as well as human traffickers and identity thieves.

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