Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Republican Steve Garvey are projected to advance in California’s top-two “jungle” primary contest, putting one of Donald Trump’s biggest antagonists in the House in a commanding position to win a Senate seat in one of the nation’s bluest states.
Progressive Reps. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), meanwhile, split the vote on the left and failed to make the runoff, a setback that is already generating finger-pointing within progressive circles about failures to consolidate around a single candidate in contested primaries.
Schiff, who rose to national prominence as an impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in the Senate following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by hundreds of Trump supporters, is viewed as a more moderate Democrat who has the backing of much of the party establishment, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
The Los Angeles-area congressman made protecting democracy a key focus of his campaign, highlighting his role on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. The position earned him lots of headlines and millions of dollars in campaign contributions, which in turn helped him blanket the notoriously expensive ad markets of California in televised spots.
Schiff’s campaign also spent heavily to elevate Garvey, a former baseball star, in conservative media in hopes of boosting his appeal and ensuring that Schiff faces an easily beatable Republican candidate in the bluest of blue states instead of Porter. The Orange County congresswoman called the tactic “brazenly cynical” and accused Schiff of seeking to keep a woman out of the runoff.
“Adam Schiff put his own selfishness above democracy by lifting up Republican Steve Garvey, who will now turn out Trump voters in key House races that could determine control of Congress,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which endorsed Porter.
“Katie Porter faced a barrage of negative ads from billionaires and special interests, as Adam Schiff spent millions to prop up a pro-Trump Republican,” he added.
Porter, who rose to prominence in Congress for grilling fossil fuel industry and Wall Street CEOs, focused her campaign on government accountability by promising to work to ban spending earmarks and lawmakers’ stock trading. She also went after Schiff directly for accepting campaign donations from special interests and accused him of being cozy with pharmaceutical companies and oil companies.
“Representative Schiff may have prosecuted big oil companies before he came to Congress, but when he got to Congress he cashed checks… from fossil fuel companies,” she said at a debate in January.
Schiff, meanwhile, said he used some of the money he raised through the years to help Porter in her congressional campaigns.
“I gave that money to you, Katie Porter, and the only response was thank you,” he said at the debate.
Rep. Barbara Lee, the other major progressive candidate in the race, trailed in fourth place on Tuesday, splitting the left in yet another advantage for Schiff’s campaign. Lee, who is famous for casting the sole vote against authorization of war shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, has campaigned for a cease-fire to end Israel’s war in Gaza, in contrast to Schiff’s staunch defense of Israel following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli communities.
Some Democrats worried that a runoff election between two Democrats would be overly bitter and expensive, drawing campaign donations to a costly battle in a safe Democratic seat instead of to other states with vulnerable Democratic incumbents like Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Republicans could win control of the Senate next year if they oust just one of the two Democrats in addition to flipping retiring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s seat in West Virginia.
Garvey, a 75-year-old first-time political candidate, has spent barely any money on his own behalf, relying instead on a polling boost from Schiff’s ads. He defended voting for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 elections during a recent debate but refused to say if he would vote for Trump in the November 2024 presidential election. He also stated that he didn’t believe Biden “has been good for this country.”
Feinstein’s seat is currently occupied by Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), who was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Butler, the third Black woman to ever serve in the Senate, announced last year she would not run to remain in the upper chamber, calling the position “not the greatest use of my voice.”