Schiff denies Porter’s claim that the California Senate primary was “rigged.”

Representative Adam B. Schiff, who last week became the Democratic nominee for an open Senate seat in California, on Sunday denied suggestions that his primary had been tampered with.

Mr. Schiff said Democrats had quickly rebuked a claim by one of his leading opponents, Representative Katie Porter, that wealthy donors had spent millions of dollars on Mr. Schiff to “rig” the race, unlike his party and former president Donald J. Trump’s false claims about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

“That term ‘faked’ is a very charged term in the year of Trump,” Mr. Schiff said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It implies fraud, voting fraud and false claims like those made by Donald Trump. I think what’s remarkable is that Democrats rallied very quickly to say, “No, we’re not using that language.”

Ms. Porter, one of Mr. Schiff’s two progressive primary opponents for the seat, thanked her supporters on social media last week and went on to describe “an attack by billionaires spending millions to rig the primaries.”

Her comments immediately drew criticism from Democratic colleagues, including Senator Alex Padilla of California, who dismissed Ms. Porter’s suggestion as “ridiculous.” an interview with Politico.

“That stands in stark contrast to the Republican Party’s handling of allegations of a rigged election,” Mr. Schiff added on Sunday, referring to Republicans who have characterized the prosecutions following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol as political retaliation. “They urge President Trump to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists if he ever gets the chance.”

Ms. Porter failed to make headway in the Senate primaries last week after Mr. Schiff and his allies spent tens of millions of dollars airing television ads that described Steve Garvey, the Republican opponent, as “too conservative for California’.

Mr. Schiff’s ads are widely believed to be part of his campaign strategy to draw more Republican voters to the polls and sideline his Democratic rivals in California’s “jungle” primaries, where the top two winners advance to the general election , regardless of their party. connectedness.

The ads were sharply criticized by Ms Porter, who characterized them as “shamelessly cynical.”

Mr. Schiff defended his campaign strategy during the interview on Sunday, saying he was simply going after his Republican opponent, just like his Democratic colleagues.