Schiff, Garvey Set to Face Off for California Senate Seat

LOS ANGELES (Los Angeles Times/TNS) — Rep. Adam B. Schiff is headed to the November runoff for California’s most competitive Senate race in a generation, most likely facing Republican challenger Steve Garvey in the contest to represent the Golden State in Washington.

The Associated Press called the race for Schiff less than a half-hour after polls closed. As results trickled in, Garvey appeared to be in a strong second place, with the other Democratic front-runners, Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine and Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, in third and fourth place, respectively.

Schiff, Porter and Lee have been campaigning for more than a year to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had represented California in the Senate since 1992. Garvey, a former athlete, entered the race in October.

The job, one of the most coveted in California politics, is rarely open. Feinstein was in the Senate for more than three decades, and Sen. Barbara Boxer served for nearly a quarter-century. A Senate seat can also be a launching pad for higher office, as was the case for Vice President Kamala Harris, President Richard Nixon and California Gov. Pete Wilson.

For the first time in a generation, Californians may not be represented by a woman senator. Boxer and Feinstein were both elected in 1992, the so-called Year of the Woman in American politics. Whoever wins November’s contest will serve alongside Sen. Alex Padilla, who was elected in 2022.

The statewide election brought Schiff, Porter and Lee — all popular Democrats who work together in Congress— onto a collision course for the first time, forcing California voters to parse their granular differences on the liberal spectrum.

The candidates tried to emphasize their unique flavors of progressive politics. Schiff focused on his decades of experience in Washington, including his high-profile work as a House manager for President Trump’s first impeachment trial. Porter struck a populist tone, promising to stand up to corporate influence in Washington. Lee leaned on her longtime progressive, anti-war credentials. And Garvey painted himself as an antidote to California’s failed liberal leadership.

The dynamics of the race were also shaped by California’s unusual “jungle primary” system, in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.

In an effort to box Porter out, Schiff and his allies staged what amounted to a free advertising campaign for Garvey, running political ads across the state calling Garvey “too conservative for California,” and framing the election as a two-man race.

Garvey, who launched his campaign months after the Democratic front-runners, has barely been seen in public and did not hold any campaign events in the days leading up to the election. He has seen his support surge in recent weeks, coinciding with Schiff’s flurry of advertising, as he consolidated support from Republicans, who make up about one-fourth of California’s registered voters.

In a state where Democrats have a 2-to-1 voter registration advantage, Schiff’s odds would be most favorable if he faced a Republican in November. He would be an overwhelming favorite, opening with a 53% to 38% lead over Garvey in a two-way matchup, according to a poll released last week by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

A race between Schiff and Porter, two Democrats, could prove more bruising and expensive, exposing fault lines between progressives and more moderate Democrats on controversial issues, including the country’s military support for Israel in the war against Hamas.

Negotiations over a potential government shutdown kept Lee, Porter and Schiff in Washington until the final few days of the election. They all crisscrossed the state in the waning hours of the campaign, making their final case to voters.

Schiff rented a private plane, stopping in seven cities in two days, including San Diego, Sacramento, San Francisco and Salinas. He trotted out support from high-profile Democrats, including House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Robert Rivas, the new speaker of the California Assembly.

“Why do you think about 80% of our colleagues from California have endorsed Adam Schiff for Senate?” Pelosi told the crowd at a Sunday evening event in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. “Because they know that he knows the Congress, and he knows California.”

Not everyone gave Schiff a warm embrace, however. Schiff, who is Jewish, has not called for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, saying he did not see “how there could be a lasting peace as long as a terrorist organization is governing Gaza and threatening to attack them over and over and over again.”

Half a dozen protesters interrupted Schiff’s first stop of the weekend at a union hall for plumbers and steamfitters in Orange County, shouting: “Shame on you, Adam!” and “Children are starving in Gaza!”

Porter voted with her 18-year-old son in Irvine on Saturday and swung through San Francisco on Sunday. A crowd at Manny’s, a local community space and cafe in the Mission District, cheered as Porter told them that she had not taken money from corporate political action committees and that the election is “a chance for us to define California as the cutting edge of democracy.”

Lee focused on voter-rich Southern California in the final days of the campaign, rallying supporters in the Inland Empire, San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles. On the second floor of an Irvine bowling alley, she referenced her support for a ceasefire in Gaza, and told the crowd: “When people ask what the differences are between myself and my opponents, I just have to say, there are more differences than similarities.”

Though no longer in the Oval Office, Trump has become a major talking point in the campaign: Garvey, who voted for the former president twice, has not said whether he will vote for him again, and the Democrats have used the former president’s name to burnish their liberal bona fides.

Lee said she was one of the earliest supporters of impeachment, as well as the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Porter talked about impeachment too, as well as her forceful interrogations of Trump appointees on the House Financial Services Committee.

Still, Schiff — through his role as a House impeachment manager and regular appearances on cable news — was the most visible and forceful foil to Trump, who regularly called him out at rallies and insulted him on social media.

That high-profile role helped Schiff raise millions in campaign funds. His campaign reported spending more than $22 million on advertising in about six weeks.

Though a prodigious fundraiser herself, Porter’s numbers lagged behind Schiff, who coasted to reelection to a 12th term in the House in 2022 and left millions untouched in his campaign account. Those funds provided a multimillion-dollar cushion to kick-start his Senate campaign.

Lee struggled to raise enough money to mount a statewide advertising campaign, which costs millions of dollars.

Both she and Schiff had pledged not to accept campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, a practice that Porter has followed since she first ran for office in 2018.

Porter repeatedly criticized Schiff for previously accepting campaign funds from political action committees funded by corporations — including oil, pharmaceutical and financial firms — seeking to influence federal policy in Washington. She told him at a recent debate: “I didn’t realize how much dirty money you’ve took until I was running against you.”

Schiff argued that Porter had accepted contributions from people who work in the oil industry, on Wall Street and for pharmaceutical companies — and that she had accepted contributions from Schiff in the past without complaint. A Times analysis of federal campaign data showed that Schiff’s two fundraising committees contributed $54,675 to Porter while she was running for the House.

The problem with the “purity tests” like the ones Porter has laid out, Schiff said at a recent debate, is that “invariably, the people who establish them don’t meet them.”

The race was also shaped by more than $21 million in spending by outside groups, including an independent expenditure committee called Fairshake that spent more than $10 million to oppose Porter’s candidacy. The group, funded by cryptocurrency investors, aired ads statewide (and hired a plane to circle the Hollywood Hills, towing a banner) that painted Porter as a hypocrite and an actor.