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

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1701041279839375670
These comments by Barabara Lee expressing her dissapointing with the descion are both sour grapes and seem to express a contemptous attitude towards the idea that voters should be able to pick their representives and the concept of senators representing all their counstituents not just the ones they share demographics charectersitcs with.

It's one of the most entitltied things i've seen written by any major us politican.

Yeah, that's a bad statement which makes her sound like a bitter person with an inflated sense of entitlement. It won't make her many new friends.

I agree and it basically ends her candidacy, but she’s also right. So Newsom’s goal the whole time was to nominate a black figurehead to pander while still supporting a white former blue dog behind the scenes? Typical of him.

This is all wonderful news for Senator-elect Katie Porter though anyway. The party is trying to rig it for Schiff, but she has crossover appeal and will win progressives handily.

Not Rigging the race for Lee is rigging it for Schiff ? This is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning.

[I’m not Stu]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1701041279839375670
These comments by Barabara Lee expressing her dissapointing with the descion are both sour grapes and seem to express a contemptous attitude towards the idea that voters should be able to pick their representives and the concept of senators representing all their counstituents not just the ones they share demographics charectersitcs with.

It's one of the most entitltied things i've seen written by any major us politican.

Yeah, that's a bad statement which makes her sound like a bitter person with an inflated sense of entitlement. It won't make her many new friends.

I agree and it basically ends her candidacy, but she’s also right. So Newsom’s goal the whole time was to nominate a black figurehead to pander while still supporting a white former blue dog behind the scenes? Typical of him.

This is all wonderful news for Senator-elect Katie Porter though anyway. The party is trying to rig it for Schiff, but she has crossover appeal and will win progressives handily.

Not Rigging the race for Lee is rigging it for Schiff ? This is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning.

Will Lee supporters want a Republican to win if it's Schiff vs R just to spite Schiff?

[Mr. Smith]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1701041279839375670
These comments by Barabara Lee expressing her dissapointing with the descion are both sour grapes and seem to express a contemptous attitude towards the idea that voters should be able to pick their representives and the concept of senators representing all their counstituents not just the ones they share demographics charectersitcs with.

It's one of the most entitltied things i've seen written by any major us politican.

Yeah, that's a bad statement which makes her sound like a bitter person with an inflated sense of entitlement. It won't make her many new friends.

I agree and it basically ends her candidacy, but she’s also right. So Newsom’s goal the whole time was to nominate a black figurehead to pander while still supporting a white former blue dog behind the scenes? Typical of him.

This is all wonderful news for Senator-elect Katie Porter though anyway. The party is trying to rig it for Schiff, but she has crossover appeal and will win progressives handily.

Not Rigging the race for Lee is rigging it for Schiff ? This is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning.

Not entirely, given The Machine.  The State Machine was headed towards Lee, the National Machine has been in it for Schiff.

Lee being out would unite those two big.

[I’m not Stu]

California's Democratic Harold Stassen Akinyemi Agbede is in again as usual.

[TML]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1701041279839375670
These comments by Barabara Lee expressing her dissapointing with the descion are both sour grapes and seem to express a contemptous attitude towards the idea that voters should be able to pick their representives and the concept of senators representing all their counstituents not just the ones they share demographics charectersitcs with.

It's one of the most entitltied things i've seen written by any major us politican.

Yeah, that's a bad statement which makes her sound like a bitter person with an inflated sense of entitlement. It won't make her many new friends.

I agree and it basically ends her candidacy, but she’s also right. So Newsom’s goal the whole time was to nominate a black figurehead to pander while still supporting a white former blue dog behind the scenes? Typical of him.

This is all wonderful news for Senator-elect Katie Porter though anyway. The party is trying to rig it for Schiff, but she has crossover appeal and will win progressives handily.

Not Rigging the race for Lee is rigging it for Schiff ? This is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning.

Here's my explanation for the "rigging it for Schiff" part:

The major power brokers involved here (i.e. Newsom, Pelosi, etc.) prefer Schiff because he is a pro-corporate & pro-establishment politician, as opposed to Lee & Porter who are both progressives. If Feinstein were pushed out, the logical choice to fufill the "black woman" pledge would have been Lee, but since Newsom prefers establishment politicians instead of progressives (as shown by his earlier appointment of Alex Padilla), he has also refrained from using political capital to force Feinstein out early, just like Pelosi.

[I’m not Stu]

Who's calling Alex Padilla a DINO?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1701041279839375670
These comments by Barabara Lee expressing her dissapointing with the descion are both sour grapes and seem to express a contemptous attitude towards the idea that voters should be able to pick their representives and the concept of senators representing all their counstituents not just the ones they share demographics charectersitcs with.

It's one of the most entitltied things i've seen written by any major us politican.

Yeah, that's a bad statement which makes her sound like a bitter person with an inflated sense of entitlement. It won't make her many new friends.

I agree and it basically ends her candidacy, but she’s also right. So Newsom’s goal the whole time was to nominate a black figurehead to pander while still supporting a white former blue dog behind the scenes? Typical of him.

This is all wonderful news for Senator-elect Katie Porter though anyway. The party is trying to rig it for Schiff, but she has crossover appeal and will win progressives handily.

Not Rigging the race for Lee is rigging it for Schiff ? This is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning.

Here's my explanation for the "rigging it for Schiff" part:

The major power brokers involved here (i.e. Newsom, Pelosi, etc.) prefer Schiff because he is a pro-corporate & pro-establishment politician, as opposed to Lee & Porter who are both progressives. If Feinstein were pushed out, the logical choice to fufill the "black woman" pledge would have been Lee, but since Newsom prefers establishment politicians instead of progressives (as shown by his earlier appointment of Alex Padilla), he has also refrained from using political capital to force Feinstein out early, just like Pelosi.

Padilla is a progressive

[Ferguson97]

Honestly, though there's no way Newsom will do it, Nancy Pelosi being a Senator for a year would be an excellent capstone to her career.

Pelosi definitely deserves the honor, but I honestly think she's more useful in the House as the de facto Minority Whip.

[Хahar 🤔]

The major power brokers involved here (i.e. Newsom, Pelosi, etc.) prefer Schiff because he is a pro-corporate & pro-establishment politician, as opposed to Lee & Porter who are both progressives.

This is nonsense.

Newsom prefers establishment politicians instead of progressives (as shown by his earlier appointment of Alex Padilla)

This is not true. Newsom prefers politicians who are loyal to him. If you try to find evidence that he dislikes "progressives" you will find none. This is not an ideological issue because the California Democratic Party is not split into ideologically-based factions because California is not New York. Somehow people keep thinking that it is.

I'm going to have to repeat myself:

Schiff is the candidate of wealthy establishment liberals. He’d crush Lee in SoCal as she’s too economically left for a lot of those voters, and so is Porter in Silicon Valley.

In keeping with what I've said in this thread in the past, it's absolutely inscrutable what "establishment" means here. People should stop using "establishment" to mean "economically right-wing" and just say that. Those terms might be synonymous in New York but they're very much not here.

You cannot use "establishment" and "progressive" as antonyms in California. I doubt you can do it in most places that aren't New York, but you certainly can't here. Please reformat your argument so that it doesn't do this.

[coloradocowboi]

Not Rigging the race for Lee is rigging it for Schiff ? This is an incredibly dubious line of reasoning.

Wow you have a fitting username lol.

You're acting as if rich donors are not lining up behind Schiff (they are), as if the vast majority of moderate party stooges in office aren't endorsing him (they are), and as if Nancy Pelosi's very public crusade to anoint him doesn't exist (it does). So maybe the line of reasoning is dubious because you don't care about or accurately perceive corrupt party apparatuses trying to force white Blue Dog moderates down the California voting public's throat yet again...

The major power brokers involved here (i.e. Newsom, Pelosi, etc.) prefer Schiff because he is a pro-corporate & pro-establishment politician, as opposed to Lee & Porter who are both progressives.

This is nonsense.

Newsom prefers establishment politicians instead of progressives (as shown by his earlier appointment of Alex Padilla)

This is not true. Newsom prefers politicians who are loyal to him. If you try to find evidence that he dislikes "progressives" you will find none. This is not an ideological issue because the California Democratic Party is not split into ideologically-based factions because California is not New York. Somehow people keep thinking that it is.

I'm going to have to repeat myself:

Schiff is the candidate of wealthy establishment liberals. He’d crush Lee in SoCal as she’s too economically left for a lot of those voters, and so is Porter in Silicon Valley.

In keeping with what I've said in this thread in the past, it's absolutely inscrutable what "establishment" means here. People should stop using "establishment" to mean "economically right-wing" and just say that. Those terms might be synonymous in New York but they're very much not here.

You cannot use "establishment" and "progressive" as antonyms in California. I doubt you can do it in most places that aren't New York, but you certainly can't here. Please reformat your argument so that it doesn't do this.

I disagree with you so strongly right now. It is exactly like New York. Real estate interests pick nominees and inundate their campaigns with money. Pelosi and Feinstein are literally married into the class that we are talking about. The moderates in California are economically right-wing and Gavin Newsom has backed them up in every decision that matters - offshore drilling, nuclear power, NIMBYism, you name it. Gavin Newsom is basically Andrew Cuomo minus the creepiness.

I love what you have to say normally but this is wrong. If establishment and progressive aren't antonyms then why did Hillary Clinton wade into an LA city council race?

[ShadowRocket]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1701041279839375670
These comments by Barabara Lee expressing her dissapointing with the descion are both sour grapes and seem to express a contemptous attitude towards the idea that voters should be able to pick their representives and the concept of senators representing all their counstituents not just the ones they share demographics charectersitcs with.

It's one of the most entitltied things i've seen written by any major us politican.

I'm not sure what she is trying to gain here?  Feinstein could easily resign or pass away before March 5th, but unless she does, Lee is complaining a hypothetical.

[Aurelius2]

I have never before heard Gavin Newsom described as a NIMBY. That's a new one.

[Хahar 🤔]

I disagree with you so strongly right now. It is exactly like New York. Real estate interests pick nominees and inundate their campaigns with money. Pelosi and Feinstein are literally married into the class that we are talking about. The moderates in California are economically right-wing and Gavin Newsom has backed them up in every decision that matters - offshore drilling, nuclear power, NIMBYism, you name it. Gavin Newsom is basically Andrew Cuomo minus the creepiness.

I love what you have to say normally but this is wrong. If establishment and progressive aren't antonyms then why did Hillary Clinton wade into an LA city council race?

I agree that Gavin Newsom is like Andrew Cuomo in many ways, but whereas Cuomo's instinct was try to destroy left-wing activists Newsom's instinct is to co-opt them. He's happy to pal around with Ro Khanna, for instance, because Khanna has been on his team ever since his first congressional campaign and because having him around gives Newsom credibility with Bernie Sanders people. As I've said, Newsom wants to be all things to all people. In this regard the contemporary politician I would compare him to is Justin Trudeau. I'm not really talking about Newsom's policy positions here: I'm talking about how he wants to be seen, and he definitely does not want to be seen as being in opposition to the left side of the party.

I've written before about the low level of ideological distinction between Democrats in partisan elections in California. There are plenty of elections between two Democrats, but how many elections are there between a left-wing Democrat and a right-wing Democrat where both candidates campaign on an ideological basis? Local elections obviously do have more ideological distinctions, but I don't recall seeing Gavin Newsom publicly involve himself in local elections since going to Sacramento. Hillary Clinton might have waded into a city council race in Los Angeles, but she's not the California Democratic Party. She is, quite literally, a New York politician.

I agree with Cody in being confused about the identification of Newsom with NIMBYs. On the issue of housing, the California government under Newsom has not gone as far as I would like, but it has gone a lot farther than I expected. I also recall that in the only recent election I can remember where there were two Democrats on the ballot and their differing positions on housing were the primary issue (the state senatorial election in San Francisco between Scott Wiener and Jackie Fielder in 2020), the candidate who used socialist iconography was not the YIMBY in the race.

[I’m not Stu]

Who would Karen Bass endorse in a Porter vs Schiff matchup?

[President Johnson]

The person would still lose to Schiff. He’s tailor made for the #resist crowd

Schiff even holds the distinction of having earned two nicknames from Trump. "Shifty Schiff" and "pencilneck". If I were him, I'd actually use that on bumper stickers.

[I’m not Stu]

What will happen if Lee continues to poll this poorly?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Who would Karen Bass endorse in a Porter vs Schiff matchup?

It's likely the entire California Dem caucus would come down for Schiff if it's down to the two of them, with the exception of maybe a few like Ro Khanna. Porter doesn't have a great reputation with her fellow Dems, and she and Maxine Waters in particular have a poor working relationship.

The idea that that Porter could beat Schiff with crossover voting in the general is interesting, but it would likely require her keeping it close among Dems. I'm not sure how many Republicans are going to go "I hate Schiff, so I'm going to vote for the feminist to his left who sounds a lot like Elizabeth Warren".

[I’m not Stu]

What would a Schiff vs Lee matchup look like? My guess is that Schiff does very well in Southern California.

[TML]

Who would Karen Bass endorse in a Porter vs Schiff matchup?

It's likely the entire California Dem caucus would come down for Schiff if it's down to the two of them, with the exception of maybe a few like Ro Khanna. Porter doesn't have a great reputation with her fellow Dems, and she and Maxine Waters in particular have a poor working relationship.

The idea that that Porter could beat Schiff with crossover voting in the general is interesting, but it would likely require her keeping it close among Dems. I'm not sure how many Republicans are going to go "I hate Schiff, so I'm going to vote for the feminist to his left who sounds a lot like Elizabeth Warren".

Let me remind everyone of the partisan composition section of the exit poll from the 2018 Senate race:

Party ID	Feinstein	De Leon	Other/No Answer
Democrats (50%)	63	34	3
Republicans (20%)	35	59	6
Independents (31%)	47	50	3

As you can see, De Leon won self-identified Republicans not because of his ideology (he was to the left of Feinstein), but because he was Feinstein's opponent. Porter could certainly do likewise against Schiff just by being his opponent.

[I’m not Stu]

What happens if Feinstein dies and Newsom appoints Malia Cohen?

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1704269965871005871?s=20

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1704269965871005871?s=20

Not surprising - there's probably a bigger gulf in policies between Lee and Porter than Porter and Schiff. Lee is definitely the likely choice for Bernie supporters. The problem is, Porter already has a pretty big netroots support just because of her persona, so the two will likely be in direct opposition now.

[Canis]

https://twitter.com/BarbaraLeeForCA/status/1704269965871005871?s=20

Looks like Lee is changing strategies and going aggressively after the progressive/Bernie 2020 vote. Honestly a good change of pace for her. She's seeking my dem clubs endorsement that started as a wing of the Sanders 2020 campaign next month and a bunch of other progressive groups and organizations. Which is honestly a pretty good strategy Sanders got 2 million votes here last go around if she can win the majority of his voters and win the black vote and do well in the Bay around her district that's a really solid amount of support and probably enough to get her into the general but it's gonna take a lot of work and outreach to get them to all turn out for her shes gotta just focus on building a base of support and turning them out right now by building name ID.

[I’m not Stu]

How would Lee do in a D vs D race? Are Porter and Schiff really DINOS?

[DrScholl]

A D vs D race comes down to region. Assuming that Lee advanced against either another Democrat her strategy would be to run up good numbers in the Bay Area and not get completely swamped in SoCal.