For all of California's ills and hardships, nothing moved the state's left-leaning voters in this year's Senate race more than the specter of former President Trump returning to the White House.
Trump's omnipresent legal troubles and dominance in the GOP presidential primary ensure that his shadow over the 2024 election will remain until November, and only increases Rep. Adam B. Schiff's already strong chances of becoming California's newest U.S. senator.
As the lead prosecutor in Trump's first impeachment trial in the House, the Burbank Democrat — whom the former president once mocked as a “little pencil neck” — used Trump's hostility to propel himself to national prominence and into the top two spots. In California's competitive Senate primary on Tuesday.
Schiff has already signaled plans to use the high disdain for Trump among most California voters to discredit his November opponent, Republican and former Dodgers star Steve Garvey, as a Trump acolyte.
“He got this 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 got the headline because he said the right thing.”
That notoriety helped Schiff over his Democratic rivals, Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine and Barbara Lee of Oakland, in the race to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who represented California in the Senate since 1992. Schiff and Garvey, a political novice who was nonetheless the front-runner. Republicans, they were in the top two in the primaries, sending them into a one-on-one contest in the general election in November.
A recent Times poll showed Schiff starting with a large lead in the one-on-one showdown, 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 take into account his past support for the former president. Garvey has not yet revealed whether he voted for Trump in this year's presidential primaries.
It's a balancing act for politicians in most parts of the country, but in a state like California, it was born out of necessity — millions of GOP voters in the state are staunch supporters of the former president, but are vastly outnumbered.
While California is home to more registered Republicans than any other state in the country, it is also home to many moderate GOP voters, college-educated women and suburban women — voting blocs that have sometimes criticized Trump's actions and policies. When Trump was on the ballot in 2016, Orange County voters chose a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since the Great Depression.
Asked how Garvey would vote in Tuesday's presidential primary, Garvey spokesman Matt Shaub repeatedly said: “You'll have to ask him.”
At his limited public campaign events, Garvey highlighted his kind demeanor while raising concerns shared by many Californians about issues such as homelessness, crime, and inflation. He avoided the inflammatory language that the former president preferred. During his appearances in conservative media, Garvey has made harsher statements, such as on Sunday when he said on Fox News: “The real war is the war against America by illegal immigrants.”
This line of attack is expected to be central to Garvey's campaign, but although it may rally Republicans and play to conservative media audiences, it is unlikely to sway enough Democrats in California.
However, political attacks from the left may erase some of the luster from Schiff's strong campaign.
During the primary campaign, the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel's subsequent invasion of Gaza created an opportunity for Schiff's opponents to use the issue to distinguish themselves from the rest of the field.
Lee soon called for an unconditional ceasefire, while Porter took a more compromise position. Schiff declined to call for something similar, instead supporting the Biden administration's efforts to find a diplomatic solution to end the war.
Protesters shout as Adam Schiff speaks during a campaign event at Avalon in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Camilo Ravel Pineda is pictured on the right.
(Wally Scalig/Los Angeles Times)
It's an opinion that has angered some Californians, including voters like Camilo Rafael Pineda, 25, who was waiting at Schiff's victory party Tuesday night and, when the politician took the stage, told Schiff about it. “Long live Gaza,” he shouted so loudly that his voice became hoarse. After being escorted overseas, he told The Times it was important for people to know the enormous 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 the candidates in this election as one of the reasons Lee failed to get off the ground and Schiff did. The political arm of the American Jewish Community has pumped $5 million into a super PAC supporting Schiff. That group was one of several that spent approximately $21 million in this basic attack on Porter and the Garvey reinforcement.
Pineda said the money means a candidate like Lee has little chance. He said his appearance was necessary so that Schiff, who is Jewish, would know how the policies he supports have affected women and children in the Gaza Strip.
Pineda said that Israel “uses the cover of Jewish identity to commit genocide against Palestinian women and children.” “Shiv needs to hear this as much as possible.”
In the end, it was older voters, not Pineda's peers, who showed up in large numbers to vote. About 45% of the votes returned came from voters over 65, according to Policy Data Inc, a campaign research firm.
Images of Rep. Adam Schiff, left, and Republican challenger Steve Garvey flash on a television screen during Schiff's election night party in Los Angeles on March 5, 2024.
(Jay C. Hong/Associated Press)
Garvey also said he opposes the ceasefire and supports Israel's response. Unlike Schiff, who believes the United States should work toward a two-state solution, Garvey said the possibility is “naive, because one of those countries will always try to annihilate Israel.”
During the primary race, Schiff's campaign spent nearly $25 million on ads that flooded the airwaves with the message that Garvey was “too conservative for California” and that Schiff had fought fiercely with Trump.
Both Democratic candidates have done their best to cultivate goodwill about who will be the best bulwark against the former president.
However, Schiff has emerged as the stronger figure in confronting Trump, who has regularly called out Schiff at campaign rallies and insulted him on social media. Voters regularly watched Schiff on cable news following developments in Trump's various legal sagas.
“The biggest issue that people are looking at, 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 about.” said political strategist Erika Kwiatkowski Nielsen, who helped run Standing Strong, the super PAC that backed Schiff.
“That trumps everything else and that was a big part of creating this contrast with Garvey. We know that's what the general election is going to look like, and he was trying to escape his record of not endorsing Trump even though he is.”
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At rallies across the state, Schiff talked about his battles with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as much as he talked about homelessness or climate change.
During a campaign rally at Burbank Union Hall on Monday, Schiff paraphrased former President Franklin Roosevelt, saying: “There are times when you can judge someone by the enemies they make.”
“By Roosevelt's standards, I'm doing very well,” he said.
Mark Lambert and his daughter came to a campaign event in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood over the weekend, hoping for a chance to meet the Burbank congressman.
Lambert watched Trump's first impeachment trial and came away impressed by Schiff's willingness to stand up to Trump.
He said he hopes Schiff is elected for one reason: “I'm worried about Donald Trump.”
Porter, Schiff's most powerful Democratic challenger, has tried to shed that image of Schiff, attacking him for taking money from corporate political action committees. She called this money “dirty” and a symbol of why voters despise career politicians. This fit with how she framed the race as a contest about generational change, through which she would “shake up Washington.”
But its effect appears to have been minimal.
On Sunday, Porter hosted a large crowd at Manny's, a community venue and café in San Francisco's Mission District, that included Anthony Libby, 67. 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,” Libby said. “This is the most important thing we need right now.”
