The 2024 California U.S. Senate Race Schiff v. Garvey: Where It Currently Stands

Since the last update in March, the race has hit a largely quiet stretch following the March 5th Primary. Official final results of the primary are due soon, and both Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R) are preparing for a months long battle for the Senate. With less than 7 months to go before election day on November 5th, this is where the Senate race stands now:

What have the candidates been up to?

Neither Schiff or Garvey have been particularly busy in the last month, both enjoying the post-primary calm in the lead up to the upcoming election season. There have been a few fundraisers to begin that money machine needed to fuel a November run, but nothing of note has been said. For the most part, Schiff has been in Washington trying to put AI transparency measures up because, contrary to popular belief, he actually still works as a Congressman. Garvey, meanwhile, has been in Palm Desert, crafting out his campaign and working out what exactly he needs to do in the coming months.

If anything, it’s former candidate Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) who has had a much more eventful month. Following her post election tirade in which she said the election was rigged, she walked back on those remarks in mid-March. However, by then, the damage was done, and a lot of support fell through. Since then, she had instead focused on the remainder of her time in Washington, declaring endorsements, and having her PAC back several candidates, including Senator Dave Min (D-Orange County) in the race for her House seat. While she said she will go back to being a law Professor at UC-Irvine following the November elections (reportedly being the Professor students will do anything to not get her as one), she could still make a splash this November should Schiff need her for speeches or fundraising.

Who is backing who?

No new endorsements have been announced, with each candidate only bringing with them the endorsements carried over from the primary. This means Schiff has dozens off the bat, ranging everywhere from Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to Dozens of state and national lawmakers to the LA Times to Actor Robert DeNiro. Garvey only has a handful thanks to his late entry in the race, with the most prominent so far being Congressman Ken Calvert (R-CA) and former San Diego City Councilman and current Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio.

We’ll be seeing more endorsements pop up soon, but for now, all has been quiet on this front.

How is polling going?

Polling is also quiet. The last poll we had on a Garvey-Schiff matchup in November was from late February with the UC Berkeley poll. Schiff had 53%, Garvey had 38%, and 9% were undecided. Even with these early numbers, Garvey will likely be the first GOP Senate candidate in decades in California to move ahead of that 40% mark, making the next poll, which is likely to come in the next few months, crucial to show where early support is.

For right now, it is only that one poll. There’s actually more old hypothetical polls between Schiff and Porter out there, showing just how blindsided the Democrats were with Garvey coming into the race.

What is coming up next?

Short-term, both candidates are awaiting final vote totals from the March primary. Both Garvey and Schiff want to claim they won it and grab a tiny bit of early momentum. Counting ends today, with official totals due soon afterwards. However, as it stands right now, Schiff has a narrow 2,304,811 to 2,301,293 vote total over Garvey now, or 31.6% to 31.5%, according to state SOS data. Porter is a distant third with 1,118,411 votes, or 15.3%. For those under 10% and above 2%, Congresswoman Barbara Lee has 717,119 votes, or 9.8%, and lawyer Eric Early (R) has 242,051 votes, or 3.3%.

Long-term, we are looking at campaign season. As the Globe noted last month “The game plan for Schiff will probably be to conserve money then start putting out ads around August or so, with signs coming out at the usual time. For Garvey, he needs to pound the pavement and make some surprises. Political experts have told the Globe that some surprise speeches would be needed. Such as a big speech in San Francisco, a Democratic stronghold, bringing out supporters in the area near a symbol of the city’s decline, like the soon to be former Macy’s or in front of a vacant office building. Another one told the Globe that a speech at the closest park or event venue to Schiff’s house in LA County would be genius, especially if Schiff is home and could hear it. Garvey buying billboards between Schiff’s house and the airport he uses or his campaign headquarters could also have a similar effect.”

Also to be expected is Schiff ratcheting up his Trump rhetoric, specifically, going up against him. He did it in the House during the Trump administration, and as a Senator, he has said that he would continue it should Trump be elected. Garvey needs to find a way to address this. It was a major weak spot for him in the debates, and he would have likely gotten more votes had he offered a clear answer on where he stood. A good bet for him will be to rip a page out of the Reagan playbook and ask voters if they were better off four years ago compared to now economically speaking, and tell Schiff he is supporting the candidate who wasn’t letting down the American people. This way, Garvey can keep up his more moderate GOP ways while being pragmatic about his vote instead of make it into anything overtly political. If Schiff even tries to say something about the unemployment rate being low, Garvey could easily retort that most new jobs now are only minimum wage rather than the more robust jobs in the previous era, as well as easily segue into going against the recent fast food minimum wage hike.

Garvey has a lot of unique ways to move up on Schiff while he is tied up in Washington, as well as have a lot of unique backdrops (Desert, Mountains, Farms, Cities, Ocean) to get himself in front of early to show how he is committed to serving all of California. Things like that will be coming up.

Election day this year will be Tuesday November 5th.