Media Now Rushes To Garvey After Months Of Ignoring Him

For months, U.S. Senate candidate and former Los Angeles Dodger and San Diego Padres star Steve Garvey (R) was almost completely ignored. In early 2023 that can be forgiven since he hadn’t even announced a run at that point.

Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA), and Congresswoman  Barbara Lee (D-CA) all announced their runs, as did some candidates who got a little early traction like lawyer Eric Early (R). Going into the summer of 2023, every analyst and pundit knew that it was likely going to be Schiff battling Porter next November, with Lee coming in a close third in March. This became especially true after then-Senator Dianne Feinstein announced that she wouldn’t be running for reelection.

Then, in June 2023, Garvey announced that he may be running. The story ran for a day and then quickly cycled out. The media continued to be dismissive of GOP candidates, instead focusing on the Schiff-Porter-Lee show.

However, following Feinstein’s death in late September, a window seemed to open up for candidates to join, leading to Garvey announcing his run for Senate on October 10th. And then it happened again. It was in the news for a day, then cycled out, with no one mentioning it much again. Even after Feinstein-replacement Senator LaPhonza Butler (D-CA) announced she wouldn’t run again and Garvey quickly moving up in the polls that November.

The media was pretty silent on Garvey going into December except for that October announcement. Garvey got a quick 10% in polls in November with Lee falling to 4th behind him, yet she was still snagging more headlines and mentioned as one of the top three candidates in the race. Google Trends always had a constant number of searches and articles with Schiff and Porter in them, and a slightly lower number for Lee. And Garvey? Well, let’s see what Google Trends showed about him:

And it wasn’t just Google picking that up. Garvey’s own website linked in all the major outlets mentioning him and only had a few roll in in November and December. The Globe had several stories of his fledgling campaign and rise in the polls during this time, and besides one or two other outlets, all Garvey seemed to get in stories was a “Oh yeah, he’s here too” line near the bottom of the article.

But then something happened in December that few Democrats saw coming: Garvey, a Republican, began polling in second place. It took a few polls to really pick up traction, but if you look at those blips in Google Trends, you can see the mentions start to begin to go up in late December. Here’s the 90-day from Trends:

Until then, Garvey was a manageable problem for Democrats. However, his quiet rise and sudden second-place showing made everyone pay attention. For the last few months, outlets have now been covering him in total. It was no longer a guaranteed Schiff-Porter race in November, and to their Chagrin, both Porter and Schiff had to begin shelling out a ton more than expected for ads this early. Even after a poor showing in the first debate last month, Garvey went through a lot of debate coaching and learned what did and didn’t work with the other candidates. After polls found that he won the second debate, and performed well in the third debate. During the last debate, he also did not get roped into a debate with Porter, while she successfully managed to get the normally collective Schiff to argue with her. Lee was being rarely mentioned now as well.

Schiff, Porter, Lee, and Garvey

In the last 5 polls, Garvey has been ahead in three of them by a significant margin, with the other two only showing Porter either tied with Garvey or up by a single point. Porter has charged the Schiff campaign with boosting Garvey up by attacking him personally and not mentioning Porter, but these charges have been laughed away by the other campaigns. Besides, Porters ad machines are running full steam right now too. The last few months of Garvey now being included in the Senate coverage has been what everyone has been what the few other outlets covering him extensively in 2023 already knew: he’s a contender with a lot more support behind him than people think.

But Garvey being treated as a lesser candidate, or even below Porter, is still being seen. In an AP article today with Garvey’s name in the headline. Headline picture? Schiff. NBC article with a sub-header mentioning Schiff, Porter, and Garvey. First picture? Schiff, Porter…and Lee. Articles on him from prominent outlets tends to mention him being a baseball player, rather than him as a candidate in the headline.

“Most outlets didn’t include Garvey until, you’re right, late December,” said Stephanie Lewis, a pollster in Southern California, to the Globe. “Early on, you know, there was still a question if he would even run or how well he was doing after joining in, so that can be explained away. Not easily, but it can be. But it got really noticeable in November. Everyone was still discounting and still calling it a Democratic three-way race when he was polling above Lee. It was only when Garvey was beating Porter in polls did everyone reevaluate coverage.”

“And, you know, California is a state with around double the registered Democrats than Republicans. A lot of readers wanted to hear about progressives like Lee and Porter. They were all still expecting, for sure, that Schiff and Porter would be facing each other in November. But they underestimated the guy. He has a low-key campaign and is barely spending any money on it and is focusing more on message. And yes, he has some issues. His family life in particular is rough to hear about. But the three Democrats are far from saints too, especially Lee, which probably helps explain those low polling numbers. And he’s been running circles around Porter in recent weeks much to her frustration.”

“Now though, everyone is doing a bunch of stories about him, positive, neutral, and negative. But he still seems to have that GOP stigma attached to him. A lot of people still think that he wasn’t supposed to be here or, if he beats Porter next week, he’ll give Schiff the election. But we need to remember that we are a Democracy. A lot of people like what Garvey is saying and would do, and they are voting accordingly. Porter can complain all she wants, but at the end of the day, the people decide. So what if there are ads out there mentioning Garvey, or that more articles are including him? She could have done more to avoid that.”

“I will say though, Garvey is finally getting the attention he has deserved since at least November, to be on par with the rest. Better late than never.”

The primary is due to be held next Tuesday, March 5th.