California Senate 2024 - Schiff (D) vs Garvey (R)

[kwabbit]

Where is the proof that Porter is actually terrible to her staff? The entire hubbub about those texts seemed like there was a lot of missing context and the full story wasn't really put forth (shockingly!)

Yeah, I’m wondering if this is just this one incident or if it is part of a bigger, concerning pattern.

I think that Lee is just too old, especially when we’re talking about replacing the oldest Dem in the senate. Like, I think she could serve through 2030 just fine, but I’d wonder about after that should she win and run for re-election.

Her office has a very high turnover rate, if you look at the thread I linked earlier on there are several other complaints about abusive behavior to her staff, a lot of them are anonymous and hard to verify but the sheer number of them doesn't paint a good picture,
https://twitter.com/DWS________/status/1608683804394393603

I wonder if Van Drew is a bad boss or if his staff just ditched him after the party switch.

[kwabbit]

Any news on the GOP side? If there’s consolidation then it might not be a D vs. D matchup. Usually GOP congress members don’t run statewide campaigns because they’re futile, but maybe an otherwise retiring member will give it a go.

[kwabbit]

While we're here, I do want to address this:

Not to mention that most of the SoCal vote was minorities.

The unjustified notion that the Bay Area is white is a topic that has come up time and time again:

San Francisco is whiter than its suburbs, it's true, but it's still only 39% non-Hispanic white. This is not meant as an indictment of you, but this demonstrates the problem with discourse about California in general and the Bay Area in particular. People talk based on the idea they have of the place, which often bears little relationship to what the place is actually like. In particular, people constantly seem to assume that the Bay Area is largely white, which is not at all the case. I'm not sure there's a metropolitan area of anywhere near similar size whose demographics are consistently mischaracterized in this way.

If we compare 2020 Census data for the nine-county Bay Area and the greater Los Angeles area (here defined as Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside), this is what we get:

Region	White	Hispanic	Asian	Black
Bay Area	35.8%	24.4%	27.7%	5.6%
Greater LA	29.4%	46.3%	13.8%	6.1%

It's true that the population of greater Los Angeles is mostly non-white, but the same is true of the Bay Area, so that alone can't be it. It seems fanciful to attribute the difference in the political fortunes of the two areas to the Bay Area being six and a half percentage points whiter.

SoCal Whites are much more Republican and therefore don’t vote at the same rate in Democratic primaries. I’m guessing Whites are now about 50-50 in SoCal while they are 70-30 at least in the Bay Area. This gap used to be even bigger as well. The diversity gap used to be greater as well before South Asian immigration to the Bay Area.

[kwabbit]

Does Lee win wine aunts from Riverside???

I know this is a joke, but this is a v Republican demo anyway.

Where would Barbara Lee do well in Southern California (if she does well in any SoCal region)?

She will do extremely well in L.A. City, and very well in Long Beach and some of the northern burbs like Pasadena and Burbank. San Diego is a gigantic question mark amidst all of this, and is being LA-ified as we speak.

Would Orange County (largely white, Hispanic, and Asian) go to Porter or Schiff?

I assume a Republican will win OC on the first ballot, given how the Dems are gonna split the vote and how OC isn't really democratic anyway. Could see Porter winning if their main candidate is some clown like Larry Elder though

I'd assume OC goes blue on the first ballot. The GOP might be even more split than the Dems. For instance, Dahle, who was the only Republican with significant support going into the 2022 primary, won 22.2% on the first ballot. Dahle is pretty prominent in CA GOP politics too, so if no one notable Republican enters the best Republican could be getting something like 7% statewide.

[kwabbit]

Based on the discrepancy between special and general results, I suspect a few percent of voters were treating the special election as a "2nd choice" box as if it were some sort of RCV thing.

There were also just way less candidates in the special that had to be allocated to a second
candidate. The GOP isn't doing better in the special despite Garvey getting a higher percentage, the D-R margin is actually a point worse. 10-15% of Schiff voters are choosing Lee and Porter as second choices. For Lee that makes sense given her age.

[kwabbit]

We're about half way counted in CA and the makeup of the Senate race is

D 57.3%
R 41.0%
Other 1.7%

From what I remember, I think it will oscillate a bit between a blue mirage and red mirage at this point after the in-persons were redder, but I feel like the last few cycles have been a bit confusing and all over the place in their trajectory compared to long ago, so who knows.

Just an awful performance by Porter and Lee though.

~53% in now, I think yesterday morning it was at like 47 or 48%. Slight inch up for Ds:

57.5% D
40.8% R
1.7% Other

~58% in now; so far a mini-blue shift. We've gone from D+16.3 to D+17.5 so far

D 57.9%
R 40.4%
Other 1.7%

It'll go from 16.3 to 21 or so back to 19, if it follows the same pattern as last year.

Counties completely in so far are Kings and El Dorado, according to NYT. Kings is Valadao's home turf.

Kings:

2020 Pres: Trump +12.3
2022 Gov: Dahle +30.2
2024 Sen: GOP +32.7
2022 House Primary (CD 13): GOP +26
2022 House General (CD13): Valadao +12
2024 House Primary (CD13): GOP +24

El Dorado:

2020 Pres: Trump +8.8
2022 Gov: Dahle +22.1
2024 Sen: GOP +16.4

From this, ballpark is D +19/20 in the end. Valadao might be a little weaker, given the primary margin slippage. El Dorado doesn't look that great for the GOP either.

[kwabbit]

We're about half way counted in CA and the makeup of the Senate race is

D 57.3%
R 41.0%
Other 1.7%

From what I remember, I think it will oscillate a bit between a blue mirage and red mirage at this point after the in-persons were redder, but I feel like the last few cycles have been a bit confusing and all over the place in their trajectory compared to long ago, so who knows.

Just an awful performance by Porter and Lee though.

~53% in now, I think yesterday morning it was at like 47 or 48%. Slight inch up for Ds:

57.5% D
40.8% R
1.7% Other

~58% in now; so far a mini-blue shift. We've gone from D+16.3 to D+17.5 so far

D 57.9%
R 40.4%
Other 1.7%

It'll go from 16.3 to 21 or so back to 19, if it follows the same pattern as last year.

Counties completely in so far are Kings and El Dorado, according to NYT. Kings is Valadao's home turf.

Kings:

2020 Pres: Trump +12.3
2022 Gov: Dahle +30.2
2024 Sen: GOP +32.7
2022 House Primary (CD 13): GOP +26
2022 House General (CD13): Valadao +12
2024 House Primary (CD13): GOP +24

El Dorado:

2020 Pres: Trump +8.8
2022 Gov: Dahle +22.1
2024 Sen: GOP +16.4

From this, ballpark is D +19/20 in the end. Valadao might be a little weaker, given the primary margin slippage. El Dorado doesn't look that great for the GOP either.

Hmm so Dahle actually had a pretty great performance.

Newsom just has middling popularity. I don't know Dahle's reputation, but he seems pretty generic and is from a from a forgotten part of the state, so I doubt he was why it was only D+18 statewide.

[kwabbit]

Per CA SoS Website Schiffs' lead for the Full Term has been cut to about 29,000

https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/returns/us-senate

Unless L.A. County has some giant basket of Schiff Vote out there is a reasonable chance Garvey not only beats Schiff in the Special Primary but also in the Regular Open Primary.

Hmmm this is interesting, so the late vote is bluer but more anti-Schiff? 

The late vote should be roughly equal or slightly redder than the statewide margin. That's what it was like 2022. It seems like counting is going even slower now though.

Overall, Schiff should continue dropping and Garvey will probably stay put. Porter and Lee will continue to rise because late ballots are younger and less establishment than earlier ballots.

[kwabbit]

Garvey is now in 1st place

Hot damn. Since the top two system was instituted, has there ever been a statewide election where a Republican placed first?

Lanhee Chen received 37% in the primary as the sole R candidate for state controller in 2022. He got 44% in the general, so he's the high water mark for the CA GOP as of late (excluding Poizner since he was an independent and the election was less polarized).

[kwabbit]

It was the right strategic thing to do and Schiff is going to be the next senator  from CA but you have to wonder if deep down Schiff wishes he had spent a few million less boosting the campaign of Garvey. Better safe than sorry I guess.

Schiff ought to be satisfied. His performance was more of a surprise than Garvey's. I don't think many people though he would be getting 55% of the Democratic vote. His spending, both to boost himself and boost Garvey over Porter by so much, gave him a clear mandate to be the next senator. Having such a stark result is good for unity and quiets the left-wing.