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

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Schiff or Porter would be ideal.  Ro Khanna is a scumbag with no principles.  Someone who started off explicitly pitching themselves as a neo-liberal, corporatist alternative to more progressive Democrats simply can’t be trusted.  He’s about as trustworthy as Sinema.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Endorsed, regardless of who else runs.  


Side note: Porter was clearly right to fire that moron for ignoring the office’s COVID testing policies and then proceeding to give her COVID; if some selfish dumba** gave me COVID and put my and my family’s lives at risk with their stupidity, you better believe I’d fire them too!  This isn’t a scandal and there is no good-faith argument for pretending that it is

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Endorsed, regardless of who else runs.  


Side note: Porter was clearly right to fire that moron for ignoring the office’s COVID testing policies and then proceeding to give her COVID; if some selfish dumba** gave me COVID and put my and my family’s lives at risk with their stupidity, you better believe I’d fire them too!  This isn’t a scandal and there is no good-faith argument for pretending that it is

The person was not ignoring the office COVID policies from what we know. Would you fire someone for getting a disease outside of their control? No one purposely gets a disease and firing someone for it is genuinely misguided.

If she’s as irresponsible as she was when she was with Porter’s office, then I wouldn’t be surprised if she got herself sick by doing something similarly stupid tbh.  I’d definitely fire someone for violating office COVID policies and giving me COVID as a direct result, if that’s what you’re asking.

Endorsed, regardless of who else runs.  


Side note: Porter was clearly right to fire that moron for ignoring the office’s COVID testing policies and then proceeding to give her COVID; if some selfish dumba** gave me COVID and put my and my family’s lives at risk with their stupidity, you better believe I’d fire them too!  This isn’t a scandal and there is no good-faith argument for pretending that it is

That staffer's friend was brutally murdered, so I suspect she had bigger things on her mind than testing for a disease that's not even really a threat anymore.  

Seriously, it's one thing if this story happened in May 2020. But imagine still being scared of COVID in summer 2022. That's not the kind of person we need in a high-profile position like being a Senator from the country's most populous state. Katie Porter can f**k off to Communist China where she would be much more at home.

- It sucks that her friend got murdered, but that doesn’t give her the right to put Porter and her family’s lives in danger with her selfishness, stupidity, and irresponsibility (to say nothing of everyone else in Porter’s office’s lives).

- Re: COVID: With all due respect, you have no idea what you’re talking about.  Incidentally, Communist China’s policies on COVID seem to be far closer to what you want than the policies at Porter’s office.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Endorsed, regardless of who else runs.  


Side note: Porter was clearly right to fire that moron for ignoring the office’s COVID testing policies and then proceeding to give her COVID; if some selfish dumba** gave me COVID and put my and my family’s lives at risk with their stupidity, you better believe I’d fire them too!  This isn’t a scandal and there is no good-faith argument for pretending that it is

The person was not ignoring the office COVID policies from what we know. Would you fire someone for getting a disease outside of their control? No one purposely gets a disease and firing someone for it is genuinely misguided.

If she’s as irresponsible as she was when she was with Porter’s office, then I wouldn’t be surprised if she got herself sick by doing something similarly stupid tbh.  I’d definitely fire someone for violating office COVID policies and giving me COVID as a direct result, if that’s what you’re asking.

If you fire someone for getting an incredibly transmissible disease, you have no business being in charge of firing anyone.

Seriously — this is a bullsh**t way of communicating about a virus, and epidemiologists who were around for the AIDS crisis have been screaming about it from day one, but no one seems to listen.

Once again, no one is being fired for getting COVID.  

1) Apparently, the person in question was a Fellow with Porter's office who wasn't even fired, but rather mildly chewed out and ordered to work remotely for the duration of her fellowship with Porter's office;

2) The issue has nothing to do with the person getting COVID and everything to do with the fact that the person knowingly violated Porter's office's COVID testing policies (as the person in question even acknowledges) and that this endangered the lives of everyone else at Porter's office, as well as directly resulting in Porter herself getting COVID.  

3) Speaking as someone who is in an elevated risk category for COVID, I would never blame someone for giving me COVID if they followed all proper procedures (even if, God forbid, the worst were to happen).  However, if I clearly caught it because someone else deliberately violated our office's COVID safety policies, I'd be pretty d*** pissed about that.  Put simply, the problem here isn't that the Fellow got COVID or even that she gave it to Porter.  The problem is that the person violated the office's COVID policies and this decision appears to have directly resulted in Porter getting COVID (to say nothing of the fact that it potentially put the lives of everyone at the office who came into contact with this individual at risk).  

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

We have to wait for Feinstein and Feinstein said she isn't declaring right now

No, we don't.  Feinstein is pretty clearly unfit to serve at this point and has been for some time (and was a pretty lousy Senator to begin with).  Feinstein should've resigned years ago and should be primaried if she refuses to finally do the right thing.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Barbara Lee is IN:
https://twitter.com/nicholaswu12/status/1613230837033492487

Gross.  It’s bad enough having that nutcase in the House; hopefully she loses the primary and the country can finally be rid of her.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

This is looking to be even more of a crowded primary than I expected. There isn't much harm in that in California, but now I'm a bit more apprehensive specifically of Porter abandoning her district, potentially for nothing. She is probably the only candidate from a district that is even remotely competitive. It's a different case from someone like Slotkin in Michigan leaving her competitive district since having a Senate seat in a swing state is worth a lot more.

There’s every reason to think Porter will be a phenomenal Senator and a staunch champion of progressive causes who is actually able to get things done.  I’m not really sure how California could do better tbh.

Incidentally, I think Slotkin will be a great Senator as well and probably be able to lock down that Senate seat long-term.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Honestly, I don't care about Lee's age at all here. Even if she only serves one term, it'd be worth it to see her elected to the Senate. She's been an icon to the left for decades and would be amazing even for just one 6-year Senate run.

I'm 100% in on team Lee at this point. Maybe even considering throwing a job app in.

Gross.  It’s bad enough having that nutcase in the House; hopefully she loses the primary and the country can finally be rid of her.

Imagine thinking the only person who called the Afghanistan War for what it ended up being "a nutcase" FYI Soylent Green is made of people.

This. Plus it’d give the left six years to come up with a good candidate in 2030 (Scott Wiener)?

Thankfully, Scott Wiener is going nowhere. Replacing Lee with him would be a major downgrade. I would bet though that she has something worked out with Khanna, given how he is being deferential af to her. And even if he's in Congress by then, Scott will be a lightweight compared to someone like Khanna. Not sure where this leaves the gov race tho

If California Republicans were smart they would throw their support to a moderate dem although I have no idea who that would be.

But the CA GOP will just run several candidates with no shot of making the top 2

It's Adam Schiff, setting up the CAGOP for a real Sophie's Choice of a general election if its Schiff v Porter or Schiff v Lee, as I expect it will be.

Imagine thinking going to war with Al-Qaeda and its Taliban protectors right after 9/11 was the wrong decision.  With all due respect, it is simply a deranged position that doesn’t come close to passing the laugh test.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I honestly don't see much logic behind backing Barbara Lee over Porter...they are not that different ideologically and they both are gonna vote same 99.9% of the time. Porter is just lot more younger

Lee isn't an asshole

Neither is Porter

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I'm not sure how this obsession over "Who's more progressive/Moderate" will work for anyone considering there's like a 1% difference between how Porter/Lee/Schiff/Khanna vote

Porter votes 95% more conservative than 95% of Democrats in Congress
https://voteview.com/person/21954/katie-porter

Adam Schiff votes more conservative than 59% Of Democrats in Congress
https://voteview.com/person/20104/adam-schiff

Ro Khanna votes more liberal than 92% of congress
https://voteview.com/person/21728/rohit-khanna

Barbra Lee votes more liberal than 99% of Democrats in Congress
https://voteview.com/person/29778/barbara-lee

Their is clearly a significant difference between Khanna, Lee and Porter and Schiff

What are five (or heck, even three) specific major policy issues where Porter and Schiff have consistently cast “conservative” votes?  Stuff like this is incredibly misleading.  

Honestly, the only one of the three who has truly suspect progressive credentials is Khanna and even then, that’s more b/c of the time early in his political career where he tried to brand himself as a pro-business moderate ally of Silicon Valley tech companies.  Since actually getting to Congress, he seems to have settled on a progressive schtick.  He’s also very transparently ambitious in a Romney circa 2007-2012 sort of way to where I just don’t trust him not to treat being a Senator as a stepping stone for some doomed vanity bid for President instead of a serious job.

The fact is that Schiff and especially Porter and Lee are all reliable progressives.  I can’t stand Lee and even I can acknowledge that she’d be a reliable progressive vote.  My issues with her are that she’s probably too old to build up enough seniority to become the top Dem on a major Senate committee, and that her absolutely batsh!t Afghanistan vote shows such poor judgement as to make her a non-starter as far as I’m concerned.  

Schiff is plenty liberal, but he’s very much an establishment liberal who I think is running less b/c of what he wants to do in the Senate than b/c he got stripped of his ranking member slot by McCarthy.  Frankly, we can do better given the current field.  He should just stay in the House.  Plus, the top two system dooms him in the runoff due to his negative name recognition with Republicans.

Porter has a proven track record of standing up to big business, is a tried and true progressive, and has held down a competitive House seat for three terms.  There’s every reason to thing she’d be an effective Senator (as opposed to merely an attention-seeker or a random backbencher) and there’s a very real chance she could one day chair the Senate Banking Committee which would be a major win for those of us who think the government shouldn’t be in the back pocket of corporate America.  

And if some folks prefer Lee, fair enough.  But let’s not pretend Porter is some sort of moderate masquerading as s progressive.  That’s just objectively not true and I think everyone here knows that whether they admit it or not.  She was one of the national progressive movement’s rising stars and then she decides she wants to run for Senate and suddenly the folks who support Lee would have us believe Porter’s really a ModerateHero ConservaDem?  Give me a break

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Schiff will win. See Nadler, Jerry.

This race in no way, shape, or form resembles that one.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Veep's network appears to be for Lee here (Barankin being a longtime statewide Harris aide, incl. as her 2016-19 CoS & then outside presidential PAC operator thereafter)

It's not surprising that the Kamala Harris network would also be the Barbara Lee network, even if Harris herself hasn't made a formal endorsement. It's another point for the notion that the real establishment candidate in this race is Barbara Lee, not Adam Schiff.

Meanwhile, hot off Karen Bass's endorsement of Lee, the Schiff campaign has decided to remember some guys:

https://twitter.com/Elex_Michaelson/status/1631152484516511744

The most exciting name on this list to me is Aaron Peskin, who is more or less a Republican caricature of a San Francisco politician. He would be by far the most malign influence on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors if not for Dean Preston. Some other names that veteran California observers might know include Darrell Steinberg (former state senate president pro tem and current Sacramento mayor), John Chiang (holder of multiple statewide elected offices, finished fifth in the 2018 gubernatorial primary), and Janice Hahn (former congresswoman, current Los Angeles County supervisor, brother of the former Los Angeles mayor).

I don't think that any of these names move the needle in any appreciable way, although the Peskin endorsement is really funny. What remains striking is the lack of support from Hispanic politicians with any sort of profile. Any candidate who can convincingly win the Southern California Mexican vote will certainly get through to the general election, and at the moment there's no indication if anyone can do it.

Schiff has gotten plenty of establishment support.  I don’t think one can just hand-wave away the fact that he’s been endorsed by (among others) Pelosi and a good chunk of the House Democratic Caucus.  

I expect Lee to do better than she has in the decidedly limited polling we have so far, but I’m also not even convinced yet that she’ll amount to anything more than a third wheel in this race.  She could gain a lot of ground and become a major contender, but right now we don’t have much evidence that she’s a serious threat to take one of the runoff spots.  Again, not saying she won’t become one as the campaign progresses, but Lee doesn’t seem to be starting from a position of strength.

It’s still way too early to predict what will happen with any real certainty, but that being said, at the moment it is looking like a Porter vs. Schiff race with Lee as a third-wheel running a vanity campaign.  Again, that could definitely change, but going strictly off of what we know right now, I think the forum CW is underestimating Porter’s odds and pretty heavily overestimating Lee’s chances given the currently available information.  

If it seems like I am hedging my bets, that’s b/c I am  It’s ridiculously early and a lot can change (far too early for me to make predictions), but some folks (this bit is not directed at anyone in particular) are talking like Lee is the clear frontrunner and/or that Porter is a doomed third wheel destined to finish a semi-distant third.  There’s very little evidentiary basis for either of those things at this point.  If nothing else, Lee very much has her work cut out for her and it’s telling that she hasn’t released her own polling to counter the ones showing her in single-digits.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

And just like that Porter becomes my least favorite Democratic Senate candidate. This type of dangerous, misinformed rhetoric is the last thing we need from a U.S. Senator. Before commenting on this issue she needs to understand the vast difference between the US and Israel. This is disqualifying imo - she's just casually promoting the end of democracy in another country.

https://twitter.com/Ian_Gay_briel/status/1633228672772591618?s=20

God d*** it!  Well, I can’t in good conscience support Porter anymore; I agree that this should be disqualifying.  Not that the average voter will care, but yikes!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

And just like that Porter becomes my least favorite Democratic Senate candidate. This type of dangerous, misinformed rhetoric is the last thing we need from a U.S. Senator. Before commenting on this issue she needs to understand the vast difference between the US and Israel. This is disqualifying imo - she's just casually promoting the end of democracy in another country.

https://twitter.com/Ian_Gay_briel/status/1633228672772591618?s=20

And just like that Porter becomes my least favorite Democratic Senate candidate. This type of dangerous, misinformed rhetoric is the last thing we need from a U.S. Senator. Before commenting on this issue she needs to understand the vast difference between the US and Israel. This is disqualifying imo - she's just casually promoting the end of democracy in another country.

https://twitter.com/Ian_Gay_briel/status/1633228672772591618?s=20

God d*** it!  Well, I can’t in good conscience support Porter anymore; I agree that this should be disqualifying.  Not that the average voter will care, but yikes!

How is this disqualifying? Most Democrats have supported Israel’s government for decades. Why is suddenly not OK to support Netanyahu now, but it was 10 years ago?

A few things:

1) Being pro-Israel =/= being pro-Netanyahu.  In fact, I'm pretty sure most Jewish-Americans don't like him and haven't since at least the 90s (if ever).    

2) Netanyahu has been an unpopular figure among Democrats in general since at least the Obama era.  There has (rightly) been decades of support for Israel's right to defend itself against a brutal campaign of Palestinian terrorism that deliberately targeted innocent Israeli civilians and repeated, unprovoked foreign invasions.  There has also (rightly) been decades of support for Israel over the Palestinians.  Israel has historically been an unambiguously democratic country that, again historically speaking, worked tirelessly to achieve peace to no avail with the Palestinians even rejecting being offered their own country.

3) What has changed is that Netanyahu (always one of the most notable villains on the Israeli side) has in the past ten years or so shifted from being a corrupt racist demagogue who would hopefully prove to be an aberration in the big scheme of things (which was still awful, but could be waited out, especially with the legal net seemingly closing in on him during his previous term) to an aspiring dictator actively working to turn Israel from a democracy into an authoritarian state.  

Folks like Parrotguy and I aren't pissed at Porter b/c she's "pro-Israel" (and again, I'd argue that you can't be both pro-Israel and pro-Netanyahu at once anymore than you can be both pro-Trump and pro-American democracy post-1/6; the two are simply mutually exclusive at this point), we're pissed because of her casual support for turning a democracy into an authoritarian state.  That she singled out his so-called "judicial reform" for praise is especially alarming.  She's supporting turning a country that has always unambiguously been a democracy into a country ruled by an Orban-style right-wing, racist authoritarian regime (except...you know...with nukes).  This is completely disqualifying.

4) That Porter seems to think Likud is pro-LGBT rights just because they have a gay friend demonstrates a truly remarkable level of (willful?) ignorance.  Netanyahu's finance minister is genocidal Jewish supremacist lunatic Bezalel "I'm a proud homophobe" Smotrich of "I’m a fascist homophobe, but I’m a man of my word.  I won’t stone gays" fame for f***'s sake.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I’m surprised there isn’t more concern about a Republicans top-2 shutout here. It’s going to be concurrent with the Republican presidential primary in the state, and there’s already 3 big name Dems running.

There isn’t even one semi-competent Republican candidate.  Plus, three “name” Democrats isn’t the sort of large field that generally led to a shutout (absent a decidedly flawed candidate or two).  Generally shutouts required at least two non-some dude Republican candidates who were at least elected officials.  And they tended to be in districts where Democrats always badly underperform (even by the usual standards) in the all Party primary due to poor Hispanic turnout compared to the GE.

- Tony Strickland vs. Steve Knight (very weak Dem field of some dudes as well)

- Gary Miller vs. Bob Dutton (also multiple credible Democrats running in a seat where Democratic turnout tends to be far lower in the primary)

- The close call in Aguillar’s seat two years after the Miller shutout (the usual turnout issues, three well-known Democrats in a scorched earth primary slug fest and a fourth over-performing Dem some dude vs. two Republicans who flew under the radar while the Dems ripped each other apart)

- The close call in Harder’s seat in 2018 (tons of Dems with low name recognition vs. Jeff Denham and Ted Howze [Trumpist city councilman from Turlock]), etc.

The California Senate race doesn’t really fit the bill although if any of Lee, Schiff, or Porter had Hispanics as a core part of their base (which doesn’t seem to be the case atm), I’d say they’d be likely to underperform in the all-party primary relative to what they’d get in the runoff whether they get a runoff slot or not. 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I mean, this is basic stuff, Feinstein needs to resign from the Senate.  That’d avoid all this nonsense about fighting over changing committee assignments.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

If the general is Lee vs Schiff (as is looking likely at the moment) then the general is likely Lee.

Right now, Schiff vs Porter looks far more likely

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

At the state convention this weekend Porter had almost no support I counted litterally 3 volunteers the entire weekend. Lee and Schiff had several competing events and Lees had more people slightly in each one. This highlights the major problem for Porter. She has no institutional support. All the progressive party officials are behind Lee as well as most of the African American leadership. And Schiff pretty much has all the establishment and moderate support behind him. I talked with one of Porters volunteers at the convention and his argument for Porter was pretty weak and rooted in ageism about Lee, he kept implying she was only capable of serving one term.

Is he wrong though?

[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

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

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

Neither one is a DINO or close. Schiff is pretty much a lockstep Biden Democrat - you'd struggle to find any issue where he's out of the party orthodoxy, although most people would define him as somewhat moderate especially on foreign policy. Porter usually aligns herself with Elizabeth Warren pretty heavily, but outside her stances on big business her votes trend more towards the Dem mainstream.

It's that the de Leon 2018-Lee 2024 voters call them DINOs. If Schiff or Porter wins, Ro Khanna will eventually launch a primary challenge.

huh what? not a single Lee supporter I know has called Schiff or Porter DINOS. Schiff takes a ton of corporate pac money and he was instrumental in killing the public option but hes not a DINO just a mainstream establishment Democrat. Porter is also far from being a DINO. The vast majority of elected dems take corporate pac money in order to be a DINO you have to be exceptionally moderate or conservative, like Joe Manchin or Dan Lipinski.  Theres no world in which Ro Khanna would attempt to primary either Porter or Schiff hes got his eyes on a statewide run most likely in 2026 for one of the row offices or maybe Governor.

Joe Lieberman killed the public option.  Adam Schiff had nothing to do with it.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Not sure why everyone is writing Lee off at this point. It’s still way too early to write anyone off.

I’m guessing it’ll be Schiff vs Lee but again, way too early to say.

Because she’s clearly in a distant third, recently pissed off the CA Democratic establishment by acting like an entitled moron, is facing far stronger and more popular opponents, and there has been no evidence whatsoever yet that she’s anything more than a third wheel in this race.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Barbara Lee & co’s behavior during all this has been absolutely awful.  It reflects a really ugly and out-of-touch sense of entitlement.  Like, I’m sure plenty of politicians have this level of ego-fueled delusion and sense of entitlement, but most of them at least have enough common sense not to aggressively shout it with their full chest like this.  Lee was already a third wheel, but this is just pathetic.  If she wants to stay in politics then she should just drop out and run for her House seat.  Otherwise, she should drop out and retire because this is just embarrassing.  I mean, what a way to end a career.  

This was really gross when Colleen Hanabusa and her allies had a similar temper-tantrum b/c Brian Schatz got picked to fill a Senate vacancy in Hawaii instead of her and it’s all kinds of gross now.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

It's incredibly unprecedented for the third-place candidate and her surrogates to repeatedly demand the seat be given to them in the middle of an ongoing race. Bizarre.

I almost hope Newsom goes ahead and taps Schiff as the party choice at this point.

If Newsom breaks his pledge it would probably be the African American part (cause all his options said no?) rather than the placeholder part at this point.

I mean, he couldn’t appoint Lee even if he wanted to at this point, right?  It’d make him look really weak for being bullied into submission by the Twitter tantrum of some random congresswoman who can’t even crack double-digits in a statewide primary

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

At this point he should just appoint Schiff as a f*** you to Lee.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I really don’t get the hate for Lee. Newsom said he would appoint a black woman, but not a candidate for Senate. He said he would appoint a black woman in a bold face pander now the chickens are coming home to roost. There aren’t many black women in CA politics, and most of them had already lined up to support Lee in her actually campaign, so it makes sense they want her to be appointed. He’s trapped himself in a paradox and is getting called out for making promises he can’t keep.

This is what politics is, Lee’s supporters aren’t acting abnormal, especially when what’s at stake is a senate seat that’s yours for as long as you want it in the nation’s most populated state.

There's a committed core of posters here who hate Barbara Lee and want Katie Porter to win and are always looking to seize on anything they can to criticize Lee and get supporters. If you've been reading this thread, then you know who they are; the most obvious example is jdb. This is stylistically equivalent to the criticism that you would see from Elizabeth Warren supporters of Bernie Sanders and his supporters. (Schiff's appeal is to cable news viewers, which is why his supporters are essentially absent from this forum.)

Beyond that, I think that what I said before still applies:

I think people in this thread are failing to think like Democrats. I imagine that nobody here actually thinks it's important that a black woman hold one of California's senatorial seats, but there are obviously a lot of Democrats (and not just black women) who are sympathetic to this line of argument. If you do believe that it's specifically important to have a black woman in the Senate in recognition of the work that black women have done to save the soul of America, then obviously it's not sufficient to just have a token placeholder who will be replaced come next election. That wouldn't accomplish anything and it would be an insult to the black women of America to think that they wouldn't deserve any more than a placeholder.

The identity-based argument for Barbara Lee doesn't appeal to anybody on this forum. It doesn't appeal to me, either, and I plan to vote for Lee for policy reasons. The problem is that people in this thread are taking their distaste for that argument and assuming that it is universal: that large numbers of voters will both care about this and react in the same way that they are. I think that both of these are incorrect. We know that identity politics has very strong appeal within the Democratic electorate. We also know that, based on polls, most voters are not thinking about this race at all, let alone following minor events such as this one. In practice, this is unlikely to swing any significant number of votes.

Arguments that Barbara Lee has somehow alienated the Democratic establishment also appear to me to be backwards thinking, an attempt to find a justification for the conclusion that this must be bad for her. What I see is prominent established Democrats like Maxine Waters and Ro Khanna being the ones calling for Lee to be appointed to the senate. What exactly is the establishment supposed to be if these people aren't part of it?

I’m not supporting Porter, but thanks for playing

That said, Lee is an irrelevant third wheel at this point.  There would be no reason for Porter supporters to punch down by talking about her tbh.  I think your bias in favor of Lee is clouding your analysis of the race a bit.