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

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I’m surprised there’s no big name in the Armenia community being thrown around for Schiff’s seat considering the massive amount of Armenians there.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Schiff and Lee are my top choices. Porter is far back.

IMO NorCal always wins for some reason, and with Porter and Schiff split the southern California vote we could get Lee/Porter or Lee/Schiff. On the other hand, Porter might split the progressive vote with Lee while Schiff consolidates the establishment. It probably evens out to each of them having the same chance at making the runoff.

[oldtimer]

I’m surprised there’s no big name in the Armenia community being thrown around for Schiff’s seat considering the massive amount of Armenians there.

Don't give Kardashians ideas.

Anyway we know that Schiff is the favourite for the Senate so they should be a fight for his old house seat.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I’m surprised there’s no big name in the Armenia community being thrown around for Schiff’s seat considering the massive amount of Armenians there.

Don't give Kardashians ideas.

Anyway we know that Schiff is the favourite for the Senate so they should be a fight for his old house seat.

Schiff isn't the Fav Caruso lost to Bass females rue Ca

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Schiff and Lee are my top choices. Porter is far back.

IMO NorCal always wins for some reason, and with Porter and Schiff split the southern California vote we could get Lee/Porter or Lee/Schiff. On the other hand, Porter might split the progressive vote with Lee while Schiff consolidates the establishment. It probably evens out to each of them having the same chance at making the runoff.

Historically that was true because that’s where the largest and wealthiest democratic base was. Not to mention that most of the SoCal vote was minorities. Recently however SoCal has become a massive democratic base in its own right and minority candidates can and have been winning state wide. The political center has been shifting south

[Хahar 🤔]

Thanks to the posters who know California (especially Sestak and coloradocowboi) who have been doing good work in this thread refuting misconceptions. This thread isn't nearly this bad right now, but I'm reminded of the summer of 2021 when the California recall thread on this forum was filled with endless commentary on the Caitlyn Jenner campaign. Focus on what matters and use your common sense to ignore what doesn't. It feels like people throw out all their intuition about political campaigns (intuition that would steer them in the right direction) when it comes to California. I can't explain why.

That being said, it's difficult for me to imagine Sacramento sitting this election out, and so it behooves us to understand what connections the candidates have to Sacramento. Katie Porter, as best as I can tell, has none; her first involvement in partisan politics was being elected to Congress. If she didn't have access to an army of small donors, this would be an insurmountable obstacle, and even as it is it's a real challenge for her. Schiff and Lee were both in the state legislature in the '90s before being elected to Congress, but Lee was in Sacramento longer and I think still has closer ties now. She was in the Assembly back when Willie Brown ran it and obviously she had a long-standing personal relationship with Ron Dellums. That she endorsed the Kamala Harris presidential campaign is an indication of her relationships with bigwigs in the California Democratic Party. My assumption is that these things do matter. (I'm not mentioning Ro Khanna here because it doesn't seem like he's going to run.)

A runoff between Schiff and Porter seems quite unlikely to me. Partly that's because they're both from the Los Angeles area, but it's not just about geography. Neither of them obviously have the sort of institutional support that candidates who win in California normally have. There's a lot of room in the race for a Democrat who's unlike either of them, and Barbara Lee seems to want to be that Democrat.

Schiff and Lee are my top choices. Porter is far back.

IMO NorCal always wins for some reason, and with Porter and Schiff split the southern California vote we could get Lee/Porter or Lee/Schiff. On the other hand, Porter might split the progressive vote with Lee while Schiff consolidates the establishment. It probably evens out to each of them having the same chance at making the runoff.

Historically that was true because that’s where the largest and wealthiest democratic base was. Not to mention that most of the SoCal vote was minorities. Recently however SoCal has become a massive democratic base in its own right and minority candidates can and have been winning state wide. The political center has been shifting south

This seems instinctively like it should be true, because that part of the state really is so much more Democratic than it used to be, but if you actually look for southern Democrats who have won statewide elections (primary or general) against serious northern Democratic candidates without having the benefit of incumbency, you find that the examples are few and far between. There's not much evidence that southern Democrats are more competitive in statewide elections than they used to be. To the extent that more statewide officeholders are from the southern part of the state now, it's because Gavin Newsom has had the ability to fill so many positions by appointment.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Thanks to the posters who know California (especially Sestak and coloradocowboi) who have been doing good work in this thread refuting misconceptions. This thread isn't nearly this bad right now, but I'm reminded of the summer of 2021 when the California recall thread on this forum was filled with endless commentary on the Caitlyn Jenner campaign. Focus on what matters and use your common sense to ignore what doesn't. It feels like people throw out all their intuition about political campaigns (intuition that would steer them in the right direction) when it comes to California. I can't explain why.

That being said, it's difficult for me to imagine Sacramento sitting this election out, and so it behooves us to understand what connections the candidates have to Sacramento. Katie Porter, as best as I can tell, has none; her first involvement in partisan politics was being elected to Congress. If she didn't have access to an army of small donors, this would be an insurmountable obstacle, and even as it is it's a real challenge for her. Schiff and Lee were both in the state legislature in the '90s before being elected to Congress, but Lee was in Sacramento longer and I think still has closer ties now. She was in the Assembly back when Willie Brown ran it and obviously she had a long-standing personal relationship with Ron Dellums. That she endorsed the Kamala Harris presidential campaign is an indication of her relationships with bigwigs in the California Democratic Party. My assumption is that these things do matter. (I'm not mentioning Ro Khanna here because it doesn't seem like he's going to run.)

A runoff between Schiff and Porter seems quite unlikely to me. Partly that's because they're both from the Los Angeles area, but it's not just about geography. Neither of them obviously have the sort of institutional support that candidates who win in California normally have. There's a lot of room in the race for a Democrat who's unlike either of them, and Barbara Lee seems to want to be that Democrat.

Schiff and Lee are my top choices. Porter is far back.

IMO NorCal always wins for some reason, and with Porter and Schiff split the southern California vote we could get Lee/Porter or Lee/Schiff. On the other hand, Porter might split the progressive vote with Lee while Schiff consolidates the establishment. It probably evens out to each of them having the same chance at making the runoff.

Historically that was true because that’s where the largest and wealthiest democratic base was. Not to mention that most of the SoCal vote was minorities. Recently however SoCal has become a massive democratic base in its own right and minority candidates can and have been winning state wide. The political center has been shifting south

This seems instinctively like it should be true, because that part of the state really is so much more Democratic than it used to be, but if you actually look for southern Democrats who have won statewide elections (primary or general) against serious northern Democratic candidates without having the benefit of incumbency, you find that the examples are few and far between. There's not much evidence that southern Democrats are more competitive in statewide elections than they used to be. To the extent that more statewide officeholders are from the southern part of the state now, it's because Gavin Newsom has had the ability to fill so many positions by appointment.

It's unlikely due to it could be Feinstein v Porter she hasn't retire yet

[Хahar 🤔]

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.

[Biden his time]

Thanks to the posters who know California (especially Sestak and coloradocowboi) who have been doing good work in this thread refuting misconceptions. This thread isn't nearly this bad right now, but I'm reminded of the summer of 2021 when the California recall thread on this forum was filled with endless commentary on the Caitlyn Jenner campaign. Focus on what matters and use your common sense to ignore what doesn't. It feels like people throw out all their intuition about political campaigns (intuition that would steer them in the right direction) when it comes to California. I can't explain why.

That being said, it's difficult for me to imagine Sacramento sitting this election out, and so it behooves us to understand what connections the candidates have to Sacramento. Katie Porter, as best as I can tell, has none; her first involvement in partisan politics was being elected to Congress. If she didn't have access to an army of small donors, this would be an insurmountable obstacle, and even as it is it's a real challenge for her. Schiff and Lee were both in the state legislature in the '90s before being elected to Congress, but Lee was in Sacramento longer and I think still has closer ties now. She was in the Assembly back when Willie Brown ran it and obviously she had a long-standing personal relationship with Ron Dellums. That she endorsed the Kamala Harris presidential campaign is an indication of her relationships with bigwigs in the California Democratic Party. My assumption is that these things do matter. (I'm not mentioning Ro Khanna here because it doesn't seem like he's going to run.)

A runoff between Schiff and Porter seems quite unlikely to me. Partly that's because they're both from the Los Angeles area, but it's not just about geography. Neither of them obviously have the sort of institutional support that candidates who win in California normally have. There's a lot of room in the race for a Democrat who's unlike either of them, and Barbara Lee seems to want to be that Democrat.

Schiff and Lee are my top choices. Porter is far back.

IMO NorCal always wins for some reason, and with Porter and Schiff split the southern California vote we could get Lee/Porter or Lee/Schiff. On the other hand, Porter might split the progressive vote with Lee while Schiff consolidates the establishment. It probably evens out to each of them having the same chance at making the runoff.

Historically that was true because that’s where the largest and wealthiest democratic base was. Not to mention that most of the SoCal vote was minorities. Recently however SoCal has become a massive democratic base in its own right and minority candidates can and have been winning state wide. The political center has been shifting south

This seems instinctively like it should be true, because that part of the state really is so much more Democratic than it used to be, but if you actually look for southern Democrats who have won statewide elections (primary or general) against serious northern Democratic candidates without having the benefit of incumbency, you find that the examples are few and far between. There's not much evidence that southern Democrats are more competitive in statewide elections than they used to be. To the extent that more statewide officeholders are from the southern part of the state now, it's because Gavin Newsom has had the ability to fill so many positions by appointment.

Do you think this is likely to change? If so, when? What would cause it? And would that be a good thing?

[Хahar 🤔]

Do you think this is likely to change? If so, when? What would cause it? And would that be a good thing?

At some point things will change because everything changes, but I think it's fair to say that the dramatic changes that people thought might occur when the top-two system was approved have not taken place.

One of the issues that I think people have with California is that they map New York onto California. New York and California do have some similarities, but they're not the same at all. In particular, you see people in this thread trying to explain a distinction between "establishment" and "progressives" that really doesn't exist, at least not the way they're suggesting it does. Ro Khanna is clearly "establishment" and yet he was the most prominent Bernie Sanders supporter in the state. You would never see the New York Democratic apparatus support someone like Barbara Lee, but that could very well happen in California.

I suspect that this is partly because of the volume of issues that get sent directly to the voters at each election. The California initiative process is unusual compared to most states in that legislators are not involved at all: an outside group circulates a petition, it gets enough signatures to be approved, and then it gets sent to the ballot. If it is approved then legislators cannot amend it without voter approval. This means that many potentially controversial issues are not subject to the normal political process. Affirmative action, for example, is popular among activists but deeply unpopular among California voters. In a different state, this could cause tension, but in California, affirmative action is simply submitted to the electorate, which then rejects it. Having to hold a statewide vote on everything is bad from the standpoint of good government, but it's probably good from the standpoint of maintaining the cohesion of the Democratic Party.

An obvious way that things could change would be if state politics were to become more ideological. I don't think that this would be a good thing if it meant that we got a New York-style split between "the establishment" and "the left": certainly nobody would look at New York as a model. At the moment, legislative Democrats have shown support for increasing housing supply (as shown by the enactment of SB 35) and have opposed homeowners trying to use environmental laws to stop universities from increasing enrollment. It's possible that more ideological politics would result in better housing legislation, but it seems more likely to me that it'd result in entrenched interests opposing what we already have.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

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:

You are right but that isn't what I was claiming at all. I was stating that, through the 1980s to the 2000s part of the reason the Democratic Party elected so many Bay Area polls is that it had democratic whites. Today the Bay Area is incredibly diverse, one of the most diverse in the country and it thrives in part of that. This is exhibitied in the fact that the two biggest NoCal candidates are both minorities. But back then it was much more white then then SoCal.

Looking at this data from Pew you can see that the Bay Area had 3,000,000 less Hispanics then Los Angeles County alone.


This phenomenonis not unique to California. New York, and much of the south at the time had Democratic parties that would be reliant on minority voters but deeply unwilling to put forward minority candidates until the last 5-10 years.

Now I didn't look at Asian American voters because, across America this same unwillingness doesn't hold true. You had Asian American candidates being nominated such as S. I. Hayakawa, and Mary Fong Eu in California, and S. B. Woo in Delaware, and George Locke in Washington.

[MarkD]

I'm trying to figure out why Adam Schiff, turning 64 y.o. in 2024, is going to run for the Senate after he's served 24 years in the House. Does he plan to only serve two terms in the Senate if he wins? Three terms, max?

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

I'm trying to figure out why Adam Schiff, turning 64 y.o. in 2024, is going to run for the Senate after he's served 24 years in the House. Does he plan to only serve two terms in the Senate if he wins? Three terms, max?

Adam Schiff isn’t the oldest candidate. Barbara Lee is 76

[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.

[Ferguson97]

I'm trying to figure out why Adam Schiff, turning 64 y.o. in 2024, is going to run for the Senate after he's served 24 years in the House. Does he plan to only serve two terms in the Senate if he wins? Three terms, max?

I genuinely thought he was in his late 40s, he looks pretty good for his age.

[brucejoel99]

BREAKING: Adam Schiff officially in

https://twitter.com/AdamSchiff/status/1618626586303160325?cxt=HHwWioDTyb2TwvYsAA...

Endorsed.

It's funny nobody cares to wait for DiFi's "announcement" of her plans.

There’s a decent chance DiFi doesn’t live to make her “announcement”

I was thinking this but didn't want to say it...

The woman is about 10 years past life expectancy. It’s sad, but, combined with her more recent mental decline, she is likely in very poor health. She’s been married three times and has outlived all of them. I truly hopes she can retire and live out her days comfortable, but that’s not a given.

There was a Vox exposé about 5 or so years ago on Congresspeople being prescribed Alzheimer's medication, and rumors swirled one of those referenced was Feinstein. It's sad really, but if you look at her political history and beliefs it's not too surprising that she would end up turning herself into a cyborgian monster to continue advancing her class's interests.

Anywho....

Schiff is probably screwed if it ends up as Dem vs Dem in November right? Seems like Republicans hate him so much they’d hold their nose and vote for Porter. Maybe for Lee too, but keep in mind that she is black.

I would rather abstain than vote for either of them, I feel many Rs wouldn't want to cast a vote for either of them too.

I really don't understand this. You know he was an actual Blue Dog, right? I think, when it comes down to it, Porter is probably only slightly more conservative than Khanna, who is probably only slightly more conservative than Lee. But on defense issues, budget issues, crime, Adam Schiff is clearly and openly to their right for sure.

I mean, I hope Republicans don't vote for him because I think he is not the Senator we need. But I would be surprised if, up against someone like Katie Porter, conservatives didn't give him another look. And he will definitely come round to court y'all!

WTF! I did not know this. How and when was Schiff of all people a "blue dog"? That is a label I would  use for henry cuellar, but not Schiff.

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1618668776580599810https://twitter.com/jacobrubashkin/status/1618670850890432512

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Feinstein says she is still considering to run this isn't AZ where Gallego is favored in a three way if Feinstein runs Schiff wont make it to runoff it will be Porter and Feinstein and if , Feinsteinl doesn't run Porter will beat Schiff she is ahead 37/26

Both Porter and Feinstein stays in due to fact they think they can get 46% in the primary and 52% in the runoff

Feinstein said by March 24 she will decide we have a full year or whenever the CA D  Prez Primary is, I assume she's running and if she does Schiff has zero chance Porter will stand in front of Warren

[coloradocowboi]

First of all s/o to Xahar for the nice words and rly brilliant analysis.

I'm actually really curious to see how Latinos and Asians achieve more political power in NorCal moving forward. A bunch of white, unremarkable Dems are sitting on v diverse seats in the house that will be very competitive when they open up (and tbh would be for a brave progressive of color now): Swalwell, Lofgren, Thompson, Garamendi, and DeSaulnier all come to mind--although the latter two probably have the progressive street cred to quash a challenge. Garamendi has gotta either retire or die soon tho he has been in California politics forever.

One thing, having spent a lot of time in West Hollywood recently, folks forget about Southern California too is that the entertainment industry is hardly "woke" or "socialist." It's actually been for most of its history a bastion of cultural conservatism, and absolutely the largest mouthpiece for American capitalism. After Bush 2 and especially Prop 8, the Republicans became culturally toxic to Millennials, whose $ funds the media industries the most, so there was an establishment shift to the left (e.g. Caruso becoming a Dem, Herb Wesson's perch on the city council for a decade).

But that establishment is still fundamentally conservative, pro big business, pro cop, and, crucially, pro war in a way that even the worst swamp monster norcal could create (e.g. gavin newsom) looks like a progressive in comparison. LA's machine is way more neoliberal than SF's, it's just extremely incompetent and weakened by probably the most insurgent DSA chapter in the country, as well as competent conservative foes like the OCGOP, military industrial complex... Adam Schiff will be their guy, and just like Caruso and everyone else they put up (Villaraigosa, for instance), he will fall short no matter how much they put him on CNN.

Porter will be the state party's candidate. Lee will lock up the Black vote and probably dominate in the Bay. I think she also has a lot of potential to go far here in Los Angeles too, because actual leftism has started to become kinda trendy and cool here. In the south end of Schiff's district, neighborhoods like Los Feliz and Echo Park are probably gonna go for Porter and/or Lee before Schiff. If a Mexican American candidate gets in.... You're looking at maybe a fourth place finish.

Where then does he make up the votes? It's not like he's tight with SD Latinos or Westminster's huge Vietnamese community. His gay constituents have so much distaste for him, despite begging for our support, that we literally forced him to run against a drag queen. I get the sense that he's a paper tiger, and outside of communities that read Politico, Adam Schiff doesn't matter. That's not a good place to be starting in...

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

I know announcements and such barely started this month, but I like how there's no clear consensus on who'll advance to the top-two. All the predictions so far are based on individual gut feelings, assumptions and preconceived notions.

I wish more California elections felt like this.

[Хahar 🤔]

I'm actually really curious to see how Latinos and Asians achieve more political power in NorCal moving forward. A bunch of white, unremarkable Dems are sitting on v diverse seats in the house that will be very competitive when they open up (and tbh would be for a brave progressive of color now): Swalwell, Lofgren, Thompson, Garamendi, and DeSaulnier all come to mind--although the latter two probably have the progressive street cred to quash a challenge. Garamendi has gotta either retire or die soon tho he has been in California politics forever.

In the state legislature, where term limits ensure turnover, you do see this process taking place. Interstate 880, along which the largest part of the Bay Area's Asian population lives, is represented in the Assembly from south to north by Evan Low, Ash Kalra, Alex Lee, Liz Ortega, and Mia Bonta. The Senate delegation is a lot whiter, but it's still a big difference from the way things were when I got into politics fifteen years ago. I think that that'll filter up as people do retire.

As someone who grew up and lives in a mixed Indian/Chinese community, the ethnic breakdown of Asian officeholders is interesting to me. The most nationally prominent Asian politician from the Bay Area is Indian, of course, but aside from Khanna there aren't a lot of notable names that are Indian. (I suppose there's a chance that someday Rishi Kumar's congressional campaigns accomplish something other than providing volunteer experience for local teens looking to burnish their college applications, but I'm not counting on it.) Local government tends to have a lot more Chinese than Indian officeholders. In any case, as of yet neither community of recent immigrants is meaningfully politically organized. (The old Cantonese community of San Francisco is a different story.) If a strong Chinese or Indian political network were to develop, it would have serious consequences in the Bay Area.

[Alben Barkley]

I didn't realize until recently that Porter endorsed Nina Turner.

I am officially retracting my endorsement for Porter and endorsing Schiff.

[Oppo]

I didn't realize until recently that Porter endorsed Nina Turner.

I am officially retracting my endorsement for Porter and endorsing Schiff.

hahahahahahahahaha

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

California has plenty of moderate but Partisan Democrats which Adam Schiff has a lot of pull with, so far polling has shown him in a strong postion due to name recognition. I don't see any reason to assume that the democratic primary will become a norcal vs socal fight, even Potter's poll show him leading in the inital primary.

[Not Me, Us]

I didn't realize until recently that Porter endorsed Nina Turner.

I am officially retracting my endorsement for Porter and endorsing Schiff.

A four year old, irrelevant endorsement for a congressional candidate from Cleveland is enough for you to switch? Not that it really matters, but that's a little odd to me.

[Ferguson97]

I didn't realize until recently that Porter endorsed Nina Turner.

I am officially retracting my endorsement for Porter and endorsing Schiff.

A four year old, irrelevant endorsement for a congressional candidate from Cleveland is enough for you to switch? Not that it really matters, but that's a little odd to me.

Nina Turner specifically fundamentally lacks any character whatsoever, and endorsing her is very questionable. Any other race, and it wouldn't matter. Turner was uniquely bad.