LOS ANGELES — Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has a California Republican Senate rival, Steve Garvey, about where he wants him, hovering around second place.
The Golden State’s “top two” Senate primary on March 5 will send the first- and second-place finishers to the Nov. 5 general election ballot. With polls showing Schiff leading, second place for Garvey, a retired All-Star first baseman who played with the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1969-82 and then the San Diego Padres from 1983-87, would give the congressman high odds of winning in the deep-blue state.
That would be the case for either of the other big-name Democrats running for Senate, Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. But it’s Schiff, arguably former President Donald Trump’s most prominent congressional antagonist over the last seven years, who is leading in virtually all recent California Senate polls.
The campaign of Schiff, first elected to the House in 2000, clearly recognizes the benefit of running against Garvey in November. After all, California is the original ‘Trump resistance’ home, and in 2020, the then-president lost to that year’s winner, President Joe Biden, by a nearly 2-1 margin.
So, Schiff’s campaign is talking up Garvey’s chances in a thinly veiled effort to boost his name ID across the vast state.
“Garvey is surging to second place in recent polls, despite his total lack of political experience and very little campaigning,” Schiff said in a Jan. 15 fundraising email. “He is a real wild card, and with Republicans preparing to vote in the GOP presidential primary on the same ballot, he stands a real chance of advancing to November.”
One Schiff Democratic opponent, Porter of the Irvine and coastal Orange County 47th Congressional District, is making plain her concerns about not making the fall ballot, with Schiff and Garvey finishing in the top two spots.
A Jan. 16 Porter Senate campaign fundraising email cites a recent Orange County Register headline, “Republican Steve Garvey has a chance to play spoiler in California’s Senate race.”
The fundraising ask warns, “If Katie falls into third place, she won’t advance to the general election, and we’ll lose her voice in Washington for good. Imagine Congress without Katie’s Whiteboard, or without her holding corporate CEOs and Big Pharma lobbyists accountable. We can’t let that happen.”
And after a Jan. 22 debate with Senate rivals Garvey, Lee, and Porter, Schiff’s campaign namechecked Garvey. It’s a tactic likely to accelerate through the March 5 primary to ensure a runoff with Garvey instead of Porter. Schiff also has a massive campaign war chest, $35 million, which he can use over the next month-plus to run television and radio ads boosting Garvey’s name ID.
“My Republican opponent won’t tell the public whether or not he’ll vote for Donald Trump in November,” Schiff said in a late-night Jan. 22 X post, hours after the Senate debate ended. “After two impeachments, four indictments, and an insurrection. What more do you need to see @SteveyGarvey6?”
Garvey’s Second Place in Polls
Garvey entered the Senate race in October, and his public events have been limited. Still, he’s attracting notice since he stands out by party affiliation from the field of Democrats such as Schiff, who represents the Los Angeles, Burbank, and Glendale 30th Congressional District, and Lee, in the Oakland and Berkeley 12th Congressional District.
In an Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics poll released on Jan. 18, a quarter of voters surveyed said they support Schiff’s campaign for Senate.
At 25%, Schiff’s support is almost double that of his closest Democratic challenger, Porter, who is polling at 13%. That’s a marked shift from November’s Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media poll, when Schiff was polling at 16% and Porter at 13%.
Porter has also dropped to third place behind Garvey. His support has jumped up 8 points since November, when he was polling at just 10%. He’s surged past Porter, whose support has remained flat at 13%, and hard-left liberal Lee languishing in fourth.
Other recent polls also have found Schiff to be in first place, Garvey second, and Porter trailing in third place.
Garvey was often mentioned as a political candidate during his playing days, but only now, at 75, is he coming up to bat in a campaign. Though Republicans are a distinct minority in California, Garvey has lots of residual name recognition from voters of a certain vintage, including a contingent of fans who believe he belongs in the Hall of Fame. In his 15 years (1993–2007) on the National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Garvey failed to reach the 75% required for induction. His highest percentage of votes was 42.6% in 1995; he received 21.1% in his final year on the ballot.
Still, Garvey’s playing stats are impressive — .294 lifetime batting average, with 2,599 hits, 272 home runs, and 1,308 runs batted in. He was a 10-time All-Star, National League MVP in 1974, and four-time Gold Glove winner, among other on-the-field achievements. Plus, he holds the NL record for consecutive games played with 1,207.
In the political realm, Schiff is the best-known Democrat. As a state senator in 2000, Schiff beat an incumbent House member. During Schiff’s first congressional term, he sometimes flouted Democratic Party orthodoxy, voting for President George W. Bush’s tax cut package in May 2001, and then the Iraq War resolution in 2002.
But after redistricting during his first term gave Schiff a much bluer constituency, he’s been a mostly down-the-line liberal Democrat. Later in Schiff’s House career, he became a national figure, loved by his party and despised by many Republicans. Schiff “has become one of the Democratic Party’s most admired figured and prolific fundraisers thanks to his crusading investigation into former President Donald Trump,” says the 2024 Almanac of American Politics.
“As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he spearheaded the impeachment effort over Trump’s demands for political favors from Ukraine,” adds the Almanac. “He later served as a member of the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”
Those activities and more drew the ire of Trump-aligned Republicans in Congress. To the point that in early January 2023, he was kicked off the House Intelligence Committee. And on June 23, 2023, the Republican majority House censured Schiff for accusing Trump of colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election. At the time, Schiff was only the 25th House member in history to be censured and the third in the last 20 years.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who led the Schiff censure effort, alleged he “abused” his position to launch “an all-out political campaign against a sitting president.”
Democratic Fundraising Frets
If Garvey falls back in the Senate primary pack, the November race turn into a one-on-one contest between two Democrats. That has the potential to divide the party, particularly with House Democrats aiming to beat seven Republican incumbents. It could also hurt Democratic efforts nationally, with donors focused on a safe blue seat, rather than the competitive Senate contests.
That includes Ohio, where populist left-wing Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown faces the voters on Nov. 5. Ohio is a right-trending state, with Brown at the top of Senate Republicans’ political target lists. Same with Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who plays up a centrist and even conservative public persona, though his voting record is more in line with the likes of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
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A California general election race between two Democrats, particularly ones with national followings, could divert donations that would have gone to more competitive seats such as Montana and Ohio. Both races are crucial as Democrats try to stave off a Republican majority. Democrats currently have a 51-49 edge over Republicans in the chamber.
The Senate seat is open due to the death of 30-year Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on Sept. 29. An appointed senator, Democratic operative and activist Laphonza Butler (D-CA), has been appointed to fill the seat through the November elections.
