The California Senate race that wasn't comes to a close

A man in a plaid shirt and khakis sits between two women in a crowded room.

Nov. 4, 2024 12:15 PM PT

After California’s most competitive Senate primary in a generation, Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey are in a general election contest that hasn’t been much of one at all.
Garvey has held few campaign events, while Schiff has hit the road to help Democrats in Nevada, Arizona and other competitive states.

Two and a half weeks before Election Day, Burbank Rep. Adam Schiff was in south Florida, shaking hands with local Democrats and stumping for Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

The same day, Republican Steve Garvey was at Temple University in Pennsylvania, picking up an award at a women’s sports media symposium.

You’d be excused for forgetting that both men were still running for the U.S. Senate in California.

After elbowing their way out of the state’s first competitive Senate primary in a generation, Schiff and Garvey have faced off in a race that hasn’t been much of one at all.

Garvey has held few public events, Schiff has regularly traveled out of state to boost Democrats in more competitive races, and neither campaign has really advertised.

That’s exactly how Schiff had hoped it would be. He and his allies spent tens of millions of dollars during the primary to tout Garvey’s conservative credentials, boosting the former Major League Baseball star into the general election and averting a more expensive and competitive runoff with Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine.

“It was just over at that point,” said Sarah A. Hill, a Cal State Fullerton professor of political science. “The primary was the election.”

Schiff’s support with a majority of California voters has barely budged since then. Depending on who you ask, that shows just how popular Schiff is — or how high the deck is stacked against Republicans such as Garvey seeking higher office in a state where Democrats hold a nearly 2-to-1 voter advantage.

Given that Garvey has toyed with the idea of running for Senate since retiring from professional baseball in 1988, Schiff said, he would have expected that he would have been “better prepared,” with a “better grasp of the issues.”

“His strength is as a ball player,” Schiff said. “As a policymaker, he doesn’t inspire confidence.”

Garvey is out of step with what California voters want, Schiff said, which is someone who will take action on climate change and reproductive rights, not someone who has voted three times for Donald Trump.

Garvey and his campaign have criticized Schiff for not saying how he will vote on Proposition 36, the criminal justice reform measure that would impose stricter penalties for retail theft and crimes involving fentanyl. The Republican supports the measure.

Garvey has also called Schiff a “liar” for his work on the congressional committee that investigated the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign, telling him in one debate: “You lied to 300 million people. You can’t take that back.”

Dan Schnur, a political science professor at Pepperdine, UC Berkeley and USC who previously ran statewide campaigns, said that Garvey would have been a competitive candidate in a state where Republicans have a fighting chance.

“In a deep-blue state like California, a Republican is simply not going to win a statewide race unless something extraordinary happens,” Schnur said. And, he said, nothing extraordinary has.

Schiff all in for Democrats

Since late September, Schiff has traveled to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin to stump for Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats who could be his colleagues in the Senate.

That included a recent Saturday in Las Vegas, where Schiff hit the campaign trail for Harris and Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, who is in a reelection fight against Republican Sam Brown.

The day started at 9 a.m. outside the headquarters of the Nevada AFL-CIO. As more than a hundred volunteers picked up breakfast burritos, canvassing assignments and leaflets, Schiff joked to the crowd: “It’s great to be in the House of Labor — or, more accurately, the Parking Lot of Labor.”

Schiff was a familiar face to many of the volunteers, who had been bussed in from California by labor unions to knock on doors.

Then Schiff was off to a campaign event in north Las Vegas where he met Mexican charro horsemen and appeared with a grandson of César Chávez; a delegates meeting of the powerful Western States Carpenters, where he dropped three f-bombs during his speech; a late vegan lunch with the actor Bryan Cranston, who was volunteering for Rosen; a stop at a phone bank for Rep. Susie Lee of southern Nevada; and a flight home that landed in Burbank at 8:40 p.m.

Schiff has also campaigned this summer and fall with other California Democrats, appearing with and fundraising for Democrats trying to flip the state’s most competitive House seats. He barnstormed the state in the final week of the campaign, campaigning with Congressional candidates in Irvine, Fullerton, San Diego, Madera and Bakersfield.

“I’m not taking it for granted in any way,” Schiff said of his lead. “I have been aggressively campaigning up and down the state, far more aggressively than my opponent.”

Schiff’s campaign said he has raised nearly $10 million for the Democrats. One brunch fundraiser in Los Angeles this summer netted $700,000, split between his campaign and eight Democrats running for Senate in swing states.

“Control of the House and the Senate is enormous in terms of what policy can get passed in the next administration,” said Kim Nalder, a political science professor at Cal State University Sacramento. “He surely understands those stakes. And it doesn’t hurt for him to set himself up as an ally to folks who are in need.”

Garvey is less visible

Garvey, whose campaign did not respond to an interview request, has held far fewer public campaign events. He toured the U.S.-Mexico border last December, traveled to Israel this summer and toured a dam and a wildfire burn area in Shasta County in the fall.

Garvey also spoke at several branches of the Calvary Chapel non-denominational evangelical church, a common stop for Republicans seeking higher office in California. At one event last month, Garvey told the audience that California is “arguably the most difficult Senate seat in America” for a Republican to win.

“It has become quite a journey,” Garvey said. “Living in the state 50 years, playing in front of millions of people, entertaining ... you’ve seen me succeed, you’ve seen me fail, but you’ve seen me get up, and keep swinging, and keep trying. That’s what we do, because we have the faith.”

He also appeared in late October at an Anaheim brewery alongside Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steel and House candidates Scott Baugh and Matt Gunderson for a rally hosted by the Orange County GOP.

Despite what Garvey has said publicly, he “knew going into this that this would be the outcome,” said Jon Fleischman, a Republican campaign strategist and former head of the California GOP.

But, Fleischman said, Republicans owe Garvey a “debt of gratitude,” because a GOP presence at the top of the ticket will bolster Republican candidates in competitive down-ballot races.

Garvey said he’s voted for Trump three times, but has not sought the former president’s endorsement. Trump said in September that that was “a big mistake,” adding: “If he doesn’t have MAGA, he’s got no chance.”

Polling has shown Garvey was right to hew to the middle. A recent poll conducted by UC Berkeley and co-sponsored by the LA Times found that 92% of respondents who characterized their political views as “MAGA” would back Garvey.

As Schiff shifted his focus to other Democratic campaigns, Garvey raised more money than Schiff in the second and third quarters of the year. Relying on nostalgia from his days with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, Garvey is selling signed baseballs for $100 on his campaign website and has appeared at fundraisers beneath a banner showing him slugging a baseball.

In a typewritten fundraising letter mailed to older voters this fall, Garvey recalled that during his baseball glory days of the 1970s, “Democrat policies had brought America to its knees. And now, as Yogi Berra used to say, ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’”

“I’m no Schwarzenegger and I’d certainly never dare compare myself to President Reagan,” Garvey wrote. “But California voters know me. And Adam Schiff and the Democrats are shaking in their boots seeing how quickly I’m rising in the polls.”

At this point in the election, Flesichman said, “the metric is not how much money somebody raises — it’s how much everyone has spent.”

Schiff’s spending has dwarfed Garvey’s, including more than 40% of the $75 million spent in the run up to March 5.

Garvey announced a $5-million ad buy in September focused on Latino voters, including radio ads for 40 Spanish-language stations. Univision also aired Spanish-language ads on their livestream during the team’s playoff run. But many voters have seen no advertisements at all.

California’s ballot includes two Senate questions. One asks voters to select Schiff or Garvey to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s final term, which ends in early January. The other asks voters to select one of the men to serve a subsequent six-year Senate term.

The race has been such a snooze, Nalder said, that many California voters will “be surprised when they see the race on their ballot at all — and even more when they see it twice.”

‘The primary was the election.’ California’s sleepy Senate race is almost over

Schiff all in for Democrats

Garvey is less visible

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