Former baseball star and current Senate candidate Steve Garvey (R) denounced rival and Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Thursday for accepting the endorsement of Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) earlier in the day, accusing Schiff of wanting to continue her far left agenda if elected.
The endorsement feud dates back to earlier this year when the four major candidates for the Senate – Garvey, Schiff, Lee, and Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) – argued during the debates. While Garvey initially had a poor showing in the first debate, he had a major turnaround in the second debate and won it, shocking many political analysts. Garvey had comebacks to all three candidates, with none more notable than Lee. Garvey slammed Lee for suggesting a $50 minimum wage, not supporting Israel, and her stance on crime.
Lee was visibly taken aback, and while the candidates recovered enough by the third debate when there was no winner, polls began swinging heavily in favor of Garvey and Schiff. On the primary election day on March 5th, Schiff and Garvey finished first and second in a one-two punch, with Schiff getting 31.6% of the vote and Garvey less than 3,000 votes away with 31.5% of the vote. Lee, meanwhile, finished a distant fourth with only 9.8% of the vote.
In the weeks that followed, Schiff went back to Washington to resume his House duties while Garvey began planning his primary election plans and slowly began speaking more and more, both in public and with the press. Most recently, he made headlines for denouncing the Pro-Palestinian protestors on Californian campuses, calling them pro-Hamas. This clashed heavily with Lee’s stance on the Gaza war, in which she has said that she wants an immediate cease-fire.
For Lee, she has spent the past few months back with her Congressional duties like Schiff. However, she has been hounded over supporting Schiff in the U.S. Senate race. Many Democrats feared that, with her far-left stances and not being happy with how the Senate race played out, she would possibly skip over endorsing any candidate. Even the other major Democratic candidate, Katie Porter, endorsed Schiff. But on Thursday that changed, with Lee finally announcing that she would be endorsing Schiff, albeit with Schiff agreeing to have fundraisers with her to help her retirement debt.
“Californians have a clear choice this November in who they want representing them in the Senate — a Trump apologist or a defender of democracy,” said Lee on Wednesday. “Now more than ever, we need to elect people like Adam Schiff, who will stand up against the autocrats looking to divide this country and dismantle our democracy. For decades in Congress, I’ve worked alongside Adam to deliver for Californians. I’m honored to endorse him for the United States Senate.”
However, Lee’s endorsement quickly brought a fury from Republicans, who charged that Schiff would be carrying on many of Lee’s stances as a result. This included Garvey. In a statement later on Thursday, Garvey said that “Adam Schiff says he looks forward to continuing to work with Barbara Lee, whose agenda is a permanent ceasefire with Hamas, out-of-control crime, $50 minimum wage, and a failed track record with the Latino community. Californians loudly rejected Barbara Lee’s pro-Hamas, pro-criminal agenda in the primary and I look forward to seeing them reject Adam Schiff and this agenda in November.”
While Schiff has been notably in favor of Israel and also denounced Lee’s $50 minimum wage plans, Garvey’s statement highlighted the fears of many that Lee could help Schiff take more extreme positions on issues if elected.
“Garvey spoke for a lot of Californians worried about Schiff going even farther to the left on a lot of issues,” expressed Angela Hewitt, a Washington based elections analyst, to the Globe on Thursday. “The part about crime hit hard, as did the $50 minimum wage, as the latter is already causing a lot of firings and other negative consequences in California.
“Lee and Garvey didn’t really like each other politically from Day one, and today is more proof of that. Democrats are trying to play this off as Garvey not fact checking, but the GOP is pressing that Schiff now has the support of someone this extreme who can influence him. Garvey is sure as hell being more outspoken now, and it is obvious that the Democrats don’t like it as Schiff can’t be in California and Washington at the same time.”
As of Thursday evening, Lee and Schiff have yet to respond to Garvey’s comment.
View Comments (2)
The Democrats, through their useful tools on the Public Utilities Commission, just lobbed one over the plate. Steve you have swing for the fence. No body is in favor this. Take the lead in the fight against an unelected commission imposing what is basically a tax on the people of California. Don't wait, they'll bury this with the help of their friends mainstream media.
Agree that Garvey should add this can't-lose-no-brainer to what he runs on. ASAP.