Politicians come in all colors of charismatic, from red-faced rabble rousers to silver-tongued orators, and Alex Padilla’s hue is the faded blue of some everyday jeans. Sure, he’s California’s first Latino senator, a rising star in the Democratic Party and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate who’s the son of uneducated migrants.
But in conversation, Padilla comes off as a regular guy, someone who just wants to talk about baseball or his kids, and — since you asked — the intricacies of electrical engineering or immigration policy.
Padilla can still give a cagey response to a question he doesn’t want to answer, though, like whether newly independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema can expect the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s full support in 2024.
