For all of California's woes and difficulties, nothing energized the state's left-wing electorate more in this year's Senate race than the specter of former President Trump's return to the White House.
The pervasiveness of Trump's legal troubles and his dominance in the Republican presidential primaries ensure that his shadow over the 2024 election will linger into November, and only enhances Rep. Adam B. Schiff's already heady chances of becoming the new U.S. senator from California.
As lead prosecutor in Trump's first House impeachment trial, the Burbank Democrat (once derided by the former president as a “little pencil neck”) used Trump's animosity to propel himself to national prominence and end between the first two. in the competitive California Senate primary election on Tuesday.
Schiff has already signaled plans to use the widespread disdain for Trump among most California voters to criticize his November opponent, Republican and former Dodgers star Steve Garvey, as a Trump acolyte.
“He's gotten that national attention because he was the face of the resistance when Trump was elected,” said Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles), who endorsed Schiff.
“He always made headlines because he said the right thing.”
That notoriety helped Schiff edge out two Democratic rivals, Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland, in the race to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had represented California in the Senate since 1992. Schiff and Garvey , a political neophyte who nonetheless was the most prominent Republican candidate, were the top two finishers in the primaries, sending them into a one-on-one race in the November general election.
A recent Times poll found that Schiff starts with a significant lead in a two-way matchup, 53% to 38%, with 9% undecided.
Garvey faces a seemingly insurmountable challenge in a state where no Republican has won a statewide race since 2006 and where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by a 2-1 margin. In California, President Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Garvey, a former first baseman for the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, voted for Trump that year and in 2016, and will now have to count on his past support for the former president. Garvey has not yet revealed whether he voted for Trump in this year's presidential primary.
It's a balancing act for politicians in much of the country, but in a state like California, it's born of necessity: Millions of the state's Republican voters are staunch supporters of the former president, but they are vastly outnumbered.
While California is home to more registered Republicans than any other state in the nation, it is also home to many Republican voters who are moderate, college-educated, suburban women—voting blocs that have sometimes blanched at the antics and politics of Trump. When Trump was on the ballot in 2016, Orange County voters elected a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since the Great Depression.
When asked how Garvey voted in Tuesday's presidential primary, Garvey spokesman Matt Shupe repeatedly said, “You'll have to ask him.”
In his limited public campaign events, Garvey highlighted his affable demeanor while expressing concerns shared by many Californians about issues such as homelessness, crime and inflation. He avoided the inflammatory language preferred by the former president. During his appearances on conservative media, Garvey made harsher statements, such as on Sunday when he said on Fox News: “Really, the real war is the war against the United States by illegal immigrants.”
That line of attack is expected to be central to Garvey's campaign, but while it may unite Republicans and appeal to conservative media audiences, it is unlikely to sway enough California Democrats.
Political attacks from the left, however, may erase some of the shine from Schiff's powerful campaign.
During the primary campaign, the Hamas attack on October 7 and Israel's subsequent invasion of Gaza created an opportunity for Schiff's opponents to use the issue to differentiate themselves from the rest of the field.
Lee quickly called for an unconditional ceasefire, while Porter took a more middle-of-the-road position. Schiff declined to call for anything similar and instead supported the Biden administration's efforts to find a diplomatic solution to end the war.
Protesters shout as Adam Schiff speaks during an election party at the Avalon in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Camilo Rafel Pineda appears on the right.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
It's a view that infuriated some Californians, including voters like Camilo Rafel Pineda, 25, who was waiting at Schiff's victory party Tuesday night, and when the politician took the stage, he let Schiff know. . He shouted, “Let Gaza live,” so loudly that he became hoarse. After he was escorted outside, he told the Times that it was important for people to know the incredible human cost of this war and this country's complicity in the deaths.
Pineda, who is Jewish, said he and many of his friends voted for Lee.
He pointed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's support for candidates in this election as one of the reasons Lee did not launch his campaign and Schiff did. The political arm of the American Jewish group invested $5 million in a super PAC that supported Schiff. That group was one of several that spent nearly $21 million in these primaries attacking Porter and boosting Garvey.
The money meant a candidate like Lee had little chance, Pineda said. His presence, he said, was essential for Schiff, who is Jewish, to know how the policies he supported affected women and children in the Gaza Strip.
Israel “is using the façade of Jewish identity to commit genocide against Palestinian women and children,” Pineda said. “Schiff needs to hear that as much as possible.”
In the end it was the older voters and not Pineda's colleagues who turned out en masse to vote. About 45% of returned ballots came from voters over age 65, according to Political Data Inc., a campaign research company.
Photos of Rep. Adam Schiff, left, and Republican opponent Steve Garvey appear on a television screen during an election night party for Schiff in Los Angeles on March 5, 2024.
(Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)
Garvey also said he opposed a ceasefire and supported Israel's response. Unlike Schiff, who believes the United States should work toward a two-state solution, Garvey said the prospect of that is “naïve, because one of those states will always try to annihilate Israel.”
During the primary election, Schiff's campaign spent nearly $25 million on advertising that flooded the airwaves with the message that Garvey was “too conservative for California” and that Schiff had taken on tough fights with Trump.
Each of the Democratic candidates did their best to burnish bona fides over who would be the best bulwark against the former president..
Still, Schiff presented himself as the most forceful foil to Trump, who regularly criticized Schiff at rallies and insulted him on social media. Voters regularly saw Schiff on cable news following developments in Trump's various legal sagas.
“The biggest issue that people are thinking about, especially as we prepare for this rematch between Trump and Biden, is that our democracy is on the ballot, and that's what Adam is all about.” said political strategist Erica Kwiatkowski Nielsen, who helped run Standing Strong, a super PAC that backed Schiff.
“That trumps everything else and that was a big part of establishing this contrast with Garvey. “We know this is what the general election is going to be like and he was trying to get away from his history of not being for Trump even though he is.”
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At rallies across the state, Schiff talked about his fights with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee almost as much as he talked about homelessness or climate change.
During a campaign rally at a Burbank union hall on Monday, Schiff paraphrased former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying, “There are times when you can judge a person by the enemies he has made.”
“By Roosevelt standards, I'm doing pretty well,” he said.
Mark Lampert and his daughter attended a campaign event in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood over the weekend, hoping to get a chance to meet the Burbank congressman.
Lampert watched Trump's first impeachment trial religiously and was impressed with Schiff's willingness to stand up to Trump.
He said he hopes Schiff is elected for one reason: “I worry about Donald Trump.”
Porter, Schiff's most formidable Democratic rival, sought to undermine that image of Schiff, attacking him for accepting money from corporate political action committees. He called this money “dirty” and emblematic of why voters despised career politicians. This fit with the way she framed the race, as a generational race in which she was going to “shake up Washington.”
But it seemed to have little impact.
On Sunday, Porter greeted a crowd at Manny's, a community space and cafe in San Francisco's Mission district, where 67-year-old Anthony Lepe was located. His wife supported Porter, but he leaned toward Schiff, and it was mostly about following the lawyer. throughout the Trump years.
“He stood up to Trump,” Lepe said. “That's the most important thing we need right now.”
