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The 2024 California U.S. Senate Race: Where It Currently Stands
Schiff, Garvey win the jungle primary, advance to the general in November
By Evan Symon, March 10, 2024 3:30 am
Since the last update in February, the primary election has come and gone, with Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R) advancing to the general election. With the candidates now adjusting to the upcoming November election, the Globe takes a look where everyone is at less than 8 months before election day.
Who is in and who is out?
After a few months of a back and forth between Garvey and Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) in the polls for second place, the GOP and right-leaning independents consolidated quickly, shooting Garvey well above Porter and even eclipsing Schiff in some polls. And on election day, the polls were, if anything, underselling how much support they really had.
Both Schiff and Garvey remain in after the primary. While the numbers are still fluctuating due to ballots still being counted, as of Friday evening, Schiff has 1,320,629 votes and Garvey 1,276,803 votes. In terms of percentages that is 33.3% and 32.2%.
Everyone else is out. This includes Katie Porter at 551,862 votes, or 13.9% of the vote and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) with 295,116 votes, or 7.5% of the vote. The only other candidate to get above 100,000 was lawyer Eric Early (R) with 140,737 votes, or 3.6% of the vote.
Who is backing who?
After the primary, endorsements were pretty much reset. While it can be expected that everyone gets back who backed them in the primary, with Democratic members of congress, most unions, many left-leaning organizations, Hollywood celebrities, and a host of other lawmakers supporting Schiff and Republican lawmakers, law enforcement groups, and sports personalities going for Garvey, there are some big questions with both.
For Schiff, can he get his former rivals Lee and Porter to go on his side. Lee is probable, as Schiff and Lee were shown to be pretty amicable. But for Porter, it is a big questions. She accused Schiff of boosting up Garvey and blamed billionaires for backing him and his ad campaigns. And she, in the past few days, has even gone into a full on meltdown, throwing the blame around. He doesn’t need Porter to win, but having a rival like her just sit this one out could cost him some votes. Same if far left voters and Gaza supporters don’t show up for him.
Garvey, meanwhile, needs more backers. Schiff has way more on his side as we saw during the primary, so Garvey needs to reach out and make some gambles. Some old Dodger and Padre buddies could help consolidate his base in SoCal, but he needs to reach out to big time Republicans too. He needs the help of Early and businessman James Bradley (R) who, combined, got over 5% of the vote on Tuesday and showed a significant number of California Republicans aren’t fully on board. Garvey needs consolidation endorsements. He needs the right and centrists going into DINO territory.
How is polling going?
Polling has been interesting. Initial polling in February showed that, in a Schiff-Garvey matchup, it would go 53%-38%. If undecideds and independents split, it would be roughly 57%-43%. And the primary results bear this out, with the combined Democratic and combined Republican votes and a split on independents coming out to just about that.
While a big win for Schiff, it would also be the smallest Senate margin win for a Democrat in California since 1994, when then Senator Dianne Feinstein defeated her Republican challenger Michael Huffington 47% to 45%. (Although Matt Fong did get 43% against Barbara Boxer in 1998 too). And before that, the best showing by a Republican in a Senate election was in 1988 when Pete Wilson won. The point is, Schiff would be known as the weakest Senate candidate for the Democrats since the 90s. Polling this spring and summer will be interesting because some post-primary figures could tell the candidates a lot.
What is coming up next?
Campaign season! Although, Schiff will probably take this one a bit easier, considering how registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1. If anything, Garvey and his allies should be fighting hard.
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.
In terms of events, Schiff will likely lean into his union and Hollywood connections for big rallies and facetime with known union leaders and celebrities. Some photo ops with UAW head Shawn Fain and big time actors will get him some front page stories. Garvey will also likely lean into his sports routes. In addition to Dodgers and Padres games, a smart move would be to attend a bunch of games and be seen. Maybe throw out some first pitches. But beyond that, Garvey’s big strength would be to travel and give speeches not just to supporters, but in areas that are strongly Democratic and pound Schiff on issues like crime, drugs, and so much else. He pretty much needs to Harry Truman this and have his own whistle stop tour via bus. Big events in big cities, but also not ignoring smaller areas. Go to some farms and all ends of the state, from the Mexican border to Mt. Shasta. Get some good looking photos by the ocean, in the mountains, and the Desert. That’s what best case scenario will be for Garvey in the coming 8 months.
Election day this year will be Tuesday November 5th.
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Sounds like Adam Schiff is counseling a partisan deep state “insurrection”, if Trump is elected.
Schiff is now warning the Intelligence Community to not fully disclose critical documents to a duly elected POTUS, and the sole leader of the Executive Branch. This position is set out in the express terms of the US Constitution. Schiff is thereby violating his oath of office, when he raised his right hand and swore he would support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
As a member of the Legislative Branch, Adam Schiff is coloring well outside his own lines and encouraging insubordination by Executive Office employees of the United State’s President. That sort of hubris should take any candidate down.
Steve Garvey is right to smack Schiff down for this reckless talk. Schiff now thinks he is running against Trump; not Garvey. Which only shows Schiff’s total contempt for voters of this state and the office he is seeking.
Pencil neck, bug eyed, shifty Schiff. Criminal Democrat mafia player and deep-state stooge.
According to Peter Schweizer’s new book “Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans” which Breitbart has covered extensively, Schiff has “financial connections to individuals involved with criminal networks in Southern California, many of whom are tied to money laundering and the drug trade.”
Schiff represents California’s 30th Congressional District, which includes Burbank, Hollywood, Glendale, and Pasadena. Schweizer notes that the fentanyl crisis is rampant in upscale Burbank where at least seven high school students had overdosed on the deadly synthetic opioid in 2022 alone. Now, schools in the Burbank Unified School District are required to carry naloxone in the event of overdoses. The effects in the city have been far-reaching. The LA area saw fentanyl deaths skyrocket “by a stunning 1,208 percent from 2016 to 2022,” Schweizer reports.
However, during Schiff’s tenure as House Intelligence chair during the 116th and 117th Congresses, the committee “did nothing” to address the issue of fentanyl, according to Blood Money. “If you go to the Intelligence Committee’s webpage that describes its work under his tenure, the word ‘fentanyl’ yields no results,” Schweizer reveals. “That is to say, the Intelligence Committee under his leadership, by its own account, did nothing on a topic that the Obama administration had declared a threat to our national security in 2017. A search of Schiff’s congressional webpage yields a lone mention of ‘fentanyl,’ a brief reference to a single piece of legislation.” Schweizer emphasizes that “Schiff was outspoken on the far, far less dangerous outbreak of monkeypox, demanding more action on a vaccine, even though it has killed no one in the United States at the time of this writing.” “Why Congressman Schiff has little to say about the deadly fentanyl crisis is an abiding mystery,” Schweizer writes. “Part of the reason may be that raising the issue might cause undue attention to his financial connections to individuals involved with criminal networks in Southern California, many of whom are tied to money laundering and the drug trade.”
Allied Wallet – a “sketchy firm” that “was tied to money laundering, with a major footprint in China” – made one of the top donations to a joint fundraising committee that Schiff established with then-Sen Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in 2017 called PAC for a Change, Schweizer alleges. The $95,000 contribution from the company – which “made money processing credit card payments” for clients described as “‘high risk’ online retailers that traditional financial institutions avoid” – was followed by donations from individual company executives to Schiff’s Congressional campaign, according Schweizer’s Blood Money. One donation came from the company’s head, Andy Khawaja, a dual U.S. and Lebanon citizen who would be embroiled in a federal investigation.
“Schiff’s congressional campaign took in at least $36,000 in donations from executives at Allied Wallet,” Schweizer notes. “Another $16,100 came from Khawaja, and two additional $10,000 contributions came from two other executives of the company. While Schiff was accepting those donations, it was publicly known that Allied Wallet had been under FBI investigation. It was not the first time: in 2010, Allied Wallet had been forced by federal authorities to forfeit $13 million for its involvement in an illegal gambling scheme.” Schweizer states that Khawaja was seeking “political access,” and with Schiff, he “clearly gained” it.
“At the time Schiff accepted donations from the executives, the company was being investigated for its ties to ‘illegal pharma’ companies around the world. Khawaja threw a lot of money around, clearly in search of political access,” Schweizer writes.
Schweizer also points out that Democrat mega-donor Ed Buck – who was convicted of two counts of distribution of controlled substances resulting in the death of two male prostitutes in 2022, was another donor to Schiff’s campaign and was also “a social acquaintance” of the representative.
Moreover, according to Blood Money, China UnionPay – a Chinese state-owned company through which triads launder money – and Allied Wallet had a partnership. China UnionPay, “a card brand that ‘is often seen as an arm of Chinese state policy,’” has “close ties to the CCP,” Schweizer reports. “UnionPay has been used by organized crime groups and drug traffickers all around the world, including the Chinese triads. Allied Wallet seemed to function ‘as a sort of credit card processor for fraudsters, swindlers, and rip-off artists bilking the public out of more than $100 million.’”
Schiff served as a California state senator before being elected to Congress in 2000. Schweizer writes that “some” of Schiff’s work in the California state senate “fueled financial crimes in his district.”
“One bill related to Medi-Cal created a gateway for considerable fraud, which an organized crime syndicate in his district seized upon, perpetuating the largest Medicaid fraud case in history at the time. California business leaders warned Schiff about the fraud they were witnessing, but he appears to have ignored it,” Schweizer writes. “In 2010, four hundred FBI agents executed a massive investigation and arrested seventy Armenian mobsters. The criminals ran 118 phantom clinics, many of them in Schiff’s district. The ringleader, Armen Kazarian, lived in Schiff’s district.”
Schiff voted against legislation in the U.S. House that would have further empowered the federal government to combat “gang violence by creating ‘an antiracketeering statute similar to the one used against the Mafia dons to prosecute criminal street gangs,’” Schweizer writes.
(https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2024/03/02/blood-money-meet-adam-schiff-who-looks-away-from-the-deadly-fentanyl-crisis-in-his-backyard-while-taking-donations-from-money-laundering-operators-tied-to-the-drug-trade/)