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

[GeorgiaModerate]

Newsom should appoint Michelle Steel or Young Kim.

Take a reliable vote from McCarthy, force a special election in a flippable district, force the NRSC to compete in California of all places in 2024 (they would be required to, at the very least, split-match eligible expenditures with Steel's/Kim's campaign), gives him bipartisan cred when he runs for President, plus he still gets to say he appointed a woman of color.

This is a little too galaxy brained for me. Actually a LOT too galaxy brained for me.

I assumed it was tongue-in-cheek.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Have two consecutive Senators elected in their own right died in office before in a relatively short period of time?

It was alluded to earlier, but both of Florida's senators died in office in 1936 within six weeks of each other.  Park Trammell, who was in his fourth term, died on May 8, and Duncan Fletcher, who was in his fifth term, died on June 17.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I think your bias in favor of Lee is clouding your analysis of the race a bit.

It could be, but if you can find anywhere that I've shifted my view of what's important in the race then I'd like to see it. Even before Lee entered the race it was clear in my view that the most important thing to win an election in California is institutional support, and I don't know why I would change that view now. The number of prominent Democrats who have come out and said that they believe that Barbara Lee should be appointed shows the strength of their support for her. Why would I change my view of the race now, a handful of polls taken before the start of the campaign wherein most of the voters are undecided?

If Lee actually were appointed, do people think she would win the primary? It seems to me like CA voters are pretty sick of having an octogenarian senator. And appointed Senators lose primaries all the time.

Do you have reason to believe that California voters are sick of having an octogenarian senator, or is that just how you would personally feel? The last time they had a choice, California voters overwhelmingly reelected an 85-year-old to the Senate, and in the 2020 Democratic primary the top two candidates by a huge margin were Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. I'm sure you know that age is rarely a barrier to being elected in this country and I'm not sure why it seems to you that all of a sudden things would be different in California.

My view is that Lee has a strong chance of winning the election even without the benefit of incumbency and that being an incumbent would significantly help her chances. Clearly others agree or else there wouldn't be any resistance to her being appointed.

Yes. High risk of death in first or second term.

You've hammered this point into the ground, and everyone is well aware of your viewpoint on it.  Let it rest, please.

[GeorgiaModerate]

If Porter can't stand the heat then she should get out of the kitchen. Schiff boosted Garvey because in the first place he took a small but significant lead, despite the fact that she had the money and enthusiasm to match his advantages.

And of course it goes without saying that for Democrats in general it's a good thing that Garvey advanced and they won't be wasting huge amounts of money in an unnecessary civil war for a safe seat. 

True, but there's a potential downside in that a high-profile D-vs-D Senate race might have brought more Democrats out to vote in November, helping them in the close House races.  That's obviously more hypothetical than the money issue, though.

[GeorgiaModerate]

If Porter can't stand the heat then she should get out of the kitchen. Schiff boosted Garvey because in the first place he took a small but significant lead, despite the fact that she had the money and enthusiasm to match his advantages.

And of course it goes without saying that for Democrats in general it's a good thing that Garvey advanced and they won't be wasting huge amounts of money in an unnecessary civil war for a safe seat. 

True, but there's a potential downside in that a high-profile D-vs-D Senate race might have brought more Democrats out to vote in November, helping them in the close House races.  That's obviously more hypothetical than the money issue, though.

If a presidential race with Trump as the opponent and the future of democracy at stake doesn't bring to the polls every single Democrat then I doubt that a Schiff vs Porter matchup would.

If California was a swing state at the presidential level, I would agree with that.  But every California voter knows the state's electoral votes will go to the Democrat; it's just as much a foregone conclusion (if not even more so) than the Senate race is.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I had a huge problem with Schiff boosting Garvey because had a Republican been locked out of the top two it could have possible lowered GOP turnout down ballot and made it easier to win House seats. Some things are more important than having an easy time winning your own race. Schiff would have still be favored against another Democrat.

What’s more important than making sure that republicans In your state have a voice for senator. I thought yall were about Democracy?

The above is a really stupid comment.  The senatorial election had multiple Republicans on the ballot.  Republican voters had ample opportunity to vote for their preferred candidate.  If Schiff had not run ads for Garvey, there would have been nothing "anti-democratic" about him not doing so.

Now, one can argue that the top-2 system is itself somewhat anti-democratic because of the possibility of a lockout, and I think there's something to that argument.  It's something that potentially can (and in fact has) hurt both parties.  If a jurisdiction is going to use this kind of primary system, then the top-4 system that Alaska uses is better because it pretty much ensures that both parties will have at least one candidate advance to the general election.

[GeorgiaModerate]

So what's up with Santa Clara county? Why would Schiff's vote share be 60% lower in the Special compared to the Full term? That seems like a pretty drastic difference.

Probably a tabulation error.