Takeaways from the California Senate Debate
In a fiery debate that underscored both California's political generational shift and Donald J. Trump's enduring influence even on liberal political races, three of the state's best-known congressional Democrats and a Republican former baseball star faced off Monday in Los Angeles about a seat in the US Senate. Angeles.
Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee, and Steve Garvey, a Republican who played first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres decades ago, are the highest ranking among more than two dozen candidates seeking the seat that had been occupied for a long time. by Senator Dianne Feinstein.
They have all been campaigning for months; Ms. Porter has been in business for more than a year. But their televised confrontation at the University of Southern California marked an opening salvo for the 2024 election. There were sweeps. There were piles. Sports metaphors abounded.
Here are five takeaways from the debate.
Democrats try to outdo each other.
Few seats are safer for Democrats than this one. Registered Republicans are doing well less than a quarter of the California electorate, and the state has moved significantly to the left since Mrs. Feinstein was first elected in 1992.
On stage, Democrats tried hard to differentiate themselves from each other, vying to denounce former President Trump, whose toxicity in liberal California made for some of the evening's most passionate exchanges.
Ms. Lee, a longtime progressive, reminded voters that in 2001 she was the only member of Congress to vote against military force in Afghanistan and that she was one of the plaintiffs against Mr. Trump in a civil lawsuit seeking damages related to the US presidential elections in Afghanistan. August 6, 2021, uprising.
Mr. Schiff, a former federal prosecutor and former member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, sought to quell criticism from the left and right and portray himself as the natural successor to Ms. Feinstein, a Democrat known for her moderate positions . He pointed to his endorsement by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, his 12 terms in Congress and his role as lead impeachment manager during former President Trump's first trial. “Californians want someone who delivers,” he said repeatedly.
In an effort to find a liberal middle ground, Ms. Porter, a minivan-driving mother of three in Orange County and a former law professor, leaned on her kitchen-table image — an everyday woman who clearly sees how government, for the better and for the worse, affects Californians.
She disagreed with Ms. Lee and vowed to end the practice of returning money to voters through earmarks. She snapped at Mr. Schiff, who leads fundraising and polling efforts, declaring, “I am the only elected official on this stage who has never taken corporate PAC money.” A new Trump term in the White House would “set us back decades in terms of diplomacy.”
Even Republican Garvey tried to distance himself from his party's MAGA establishment, which is deeply unpopular with the majority of California voters, and argued that the election results should be accepted. When asked where he and his party differed, he replied half-jokingly: “Just about everything.”
Age is part of the subtext.
Ms. Feinstein was 90 when she died in September. In the final years of her term, her long and distinguished record in the public sector was overshadowed by a heartbreaking national fury over her health and cognitive acuity. Ms. Lee is 77, Mr. Garvey is 75 and Mr. Schiff is 63.
Only Ms. Porter, who just turned 50, referred to it directly, but the balance between veteran representation and gerontocracy was a clear subtext. Several questions focused on generational issues, such as student debt and the state's high housing prices.
After Mr. Garvey called Democrats “career politicians,” Ms. Porter, who was elected to Congress in 2019, took the opportunity to point out several disagreements between her and her colleagues.
“I know I'm the youngest person on this stage, but my career wasn't just five years,” she said.
A ceasefire is a campaign issue.
On college campuses across the country, the war in Gaza has become a flashpoint among liberal students who otherwise agree on progressive values and policies. Before the debate, students from Jewish Voice for Peace handed out flyers demanding a ceasefire outside the Bovard Auditorium, the debate venue. After the event, a crowd of about a hundred protesters chanted “Ceasefire now!” when the crowd left.
On stage, Ms. Lee was the only candidate to answer their call. “The only way Israel can be safe is through a permanent ceasefire,” she said. Drawing a direct line from the September 11 terror attacks – and her then-warnings against a US invasion – she warned that the current conflict could “spiral out of control” and embroil America in another war.
The other Democratic candidates gave more measured responses, calling for a reduction in casualties in the conflict but saying Israel has the right to defend itself. Recent polls have shown sharp divisions among California voters on the issue, along age and ideological lines.
“It is not, in my view, inconsistent with human nature to mourn the loss of both innocent Palestinians and innocent Israelis,” Mr. Schiff said. “But Israel must defend itself.”
Ms Porter said she had called for a “permanent ceasefire” but only after other conditions were met.
Mr. Garvey pledged unequivocal support for Israel, “for whatever their needs are.”
Steve Garvey is a political rookie.
Mr. Garvey was revered by Southern Californians when he played baseball, but his political inexperience more than three decades later was painful to watch Monday. Mr Garvey, who has never held public office, insisted he had taken “strong positions” on border control and policing but was “new” and needed to “explore California.” He promised he would release more detailed policies soon.
For a long portion of the debate, he was pressed to say who he would vote for as president if Trump won the Republican nomination. Mr. Garvey declined to answer, saying only that he did not believe President Biden had “been good for this country.” .”
“Once a dodger, always a dodger,” Ms. Porter snapped as Ms. Lee wondered aloud whether Mr. Garvey had forgotten Jan. 6 and Mr. Schiff demanded to know what it would take to openly criticize his party's leader. who faces multiple criminal charges.
At another point, Mr. Garvey asked his opponents when they last visited “downtown” and touted recent campaign stops in which he had met homeless people. That drew scathing responses from Mr. Schiff and Ms. Lee, who pointed out that she was once homeless and that her Oakland district includes some of the state's poorest urban areas.
“You were a great baseball player,” Mr. Schiff said, but “that was a swing and a miss.”
Still, Garvey was able to take second place.
Under California's open primary system, voters on March 5 will narrow the field to two top voters, regardless of party, who will face each other in November. In California, that system has led to two Democrats competing in a general election, as was the case in 2018 when Ms. Feinstein won reelection over a former Democratic state legislative leader.
Before Mr. Garvey entered the race, it seemed likely that the two Democratic poll leaders, Mr. Schiff and Ms. Porter, would face each other in November. But Garvey's sports stardom has generated interest in recent weeks, and surveys indicate he may be able to consolidate enough Republican votes to advance to the runoff.
That would be good news for Mr. Schiff, the front-runner in a heavily Democratic electorate, but bad news for Ms. Porter, who is in a tight race for second place in the polls with Mr. Garvey. On Monday, she harped on Mr. Garvey's vague answers and attacked Mr. Schiff, charging that campaign contributions he had accepted from oil, cable and pharmaceutical companies were “dirty money.”
Mr. Schiff responded that, as a fellow Democrat who supported her campaigns for Congress, he had donated part of his war chest to her. “And the only response I got was, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.'”