I love politics, but despite Chiang’s entry, it’s too early for me to care about 2018.
As for the 2016 California Senate race, yeah, it’s safe Democrat. The democratic candidates don’t have serious policy disagreements so it’s gonna be blah unless one goes negative. There’s little incentive to do so, since the Democrats may be able to pull off a Democrat vs. Democrat November election if they are the top 2 vote getters in the primary.