Ignoring the GOP: How Media is Dismissive of GOP Candidates on 2024 Senate Election

Recent polls for the 2024 California U.S. Senate election have shown that GOP candidates are doing better than expected. Berkeley IGS and FM3 polls last month showed that Republican Attorney Eric Early is leading the primary race currently thanks to the Democratic split, with Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) neck to neck in third. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) is a distant fourth. While an Emerson poll earlier this month found that more in the GOP are now undecided likely due to the uncertainty if former Major League Baseball star Steve Garvey runs or not, Republicans like Early and Coast Guard veteran James Bradley are still polling decently.

A win by the GOP next November in the Senate for California is seen as unlikely by most analysts. Prior elections have had huge margins come in for Democrats, with Senator Alex Padilla defeating Mark Meuser 61%-39% in 2022 and the GOP not even making the general election in 2018 when Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) beat current LA City Councilman Kevin De Leon. The high number of registered Democrats makes this especially difficult.

However, the GOP in California has pulled off come-from-behind victories in the past, with House candidates managing to retake most of Orange County in the last few elections following the 2018 blue wave that pushed most Republican Congressional members in the county out. Plus, with a strong GOP candidate in the November race, pressure is put upon Democrats to not just pick their two favorites like 2018, but to pick one strong candidate – meaning that all three current top Democrats would need to continue scrambling for support and donations even harder, potentially putting the winner in March in a tough financial spot after spending so much early on.

Despite this, media focus has been almost entirely on the top 3 Democrats: Schiff, Porter, and Lee. Some news stories on the Senate only mention those three, while others generally lump Republican candidates all together as one entity, not even mentioning the top polling candidates in the party. An Inside California Politics special out later this week highlights this discrepancy the most by only focusing on Schiff, Porter, and Lee despite Early currently polling well and Garvey likely to bring even more momentum for the GOP.

Many have blamed political bias when it comes to the reporting of candidates, while others note that they are simply looking at who could possibly win come November and not in March. However, at a time when name recognition means now more than ever due to increased news coming from online and social media sources where tagged or hash-tagged names can make or break candidates, electing to not even look at some candidates is more dangerous now more than ever.

The top three and the rest

“It’s not a surprise in California with the Senate election next year that people aren’t looking at the GOP candidates so much,” Washington-based election advisor Stan Taney told the Globe Monday. “It could be bias, but a big part of it is that the GOP has no candidate with prior elected experience. Schiff, and Porter, and Lee have decades of elected experience between them. For the GOP, there is some military experience and legal experience, all valuable, and some prior runs in the state for office, but no elections wins really.”

“Early and Garvey are interesting, because you have a well-tracked candidate and a big fundraiser there, not to mention names people have heard, especially with Garvey. Plus, you are right with the polling. Because the 3 Dems are fighting each other, top GOP candidates are doing surprisingly well.”

“But let’s be real here. If Schiff is ignored, you have a ton of supporters in SoCal who would raise hell, not to mention people saying that they are biasing against male candidates. Porter, ignore her, her people will raise hell in SoCal. Lee, she’s polling the worst right now of the three by far, but don’t include her, and suddenly it becomes racial and also a slight against NorCal. So you can’t ignore those 3, even though Lee might be ok to leave off at this point.”

“GOP, you have Early polling well and Garvey who can come in with good name recognition, but no one is saying much about them. It’s those 3 right now. Even Lexi Reese, who is looking to come into the race as a Democrat, was only in the news for a day or so when she announced the exploratory committee.”

“So yeah, while it isn’t a total ignorance of the other candidates, as they are being mentioned, the focus is still on the big three despite polling showing that it is a mess for them and a growing uncertainty over them.”

More polls for the race are likely to come out soon.