Schiff, Garvey Keep Massive Leads In U.S. Senate Primary As Vote Tabulation Winds Down

Both Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R) kept their massive leads in the U.S. Senate primary this week as the final votes continue to be counted from last months jungle primary race.

As of Monday evening, Schiff leads the race with 2,303,044 votes, or 31.6% of the vote, followed closely by Garvey who is less than 5,000 votes away from getting first place with 2,298,263 votes, or 31.5% of the vote. Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) was far back in third place with 1,117,549 votes, or 15.3%. The other major candidate, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) currently has a tally of 716,382 votes, or 9.8% of the vote. Rounding out the top 5 was lawyer Eric Early (R) who has garnered 241,608 votes, or about 3.3% of the vote.

In comparison to the last poll to be conducted before the election, the UC Berkeley IGS poll, Schiff, Garvey, and Lee are ahead of expectations. According to the IGS poll, Schiff had a 25%, Garvey a 27%, and Lee an 8% heading into the election. Even Early, projected at 2%, got above what was projected. Only Porter, who had been projected to get roughly 19%, got far less than what polling had showed.

And when compared to early results, vote totals have only fluctuated a few percentage points. With 11 days left until final results are to be unveiled, many experts told the Globe on Monday that results are likely not to change very much and that Schiff and Garvey will likely to continue on to official landslide victories.

“There’s still a few big questions,” said Stephanie Lewis, a pollster in Southern California, to the Globe. “One is who will get first. Garvey is only 5,000 votes away from overtaking Schiff, so depending on the final results, we may have Garvey pull out a narrow first place victory, which is something he can ride on through election season. Schiff and Garvey getting over double the number of votes than Porter and Lee getting that 10% threshold are also important. Both Schiff and Garvey want to say they got double over the third place candidate, and Lee wanted that 10% to have a respectable total.”

“And for Garvey, he’s hoping that all votes, in total, go above 40% for the GOP. 40% is the figure that many in the GOP are looking at as a moral victory in November. They have a stronger than normal candidate this year and finally one who appeals to Latinos and other previous hard to reach groups for the GOP in California.”

“We’re getting final results in 11 days, but as they are right now, there are still a few important things to figure out from final figures. You’ll notice that both candidates are pretty quiet right now. Well, it won’t last for long. It’s now April, so fundraising buildup is happening. We’re also waiting on first post-primary polls. It would give a good lay of the land and show how much the national parties might be kicking into this race. But first, we need those final numbers and to figure out just where everyone fell on election day.”

Final voting figures are to be tallied in 11 days by the California Secretary of State’s office.