US Senate race results in California: Schiff remains favorite to win

Democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, who rose to national prominence as former President Trump's primary opponent, handily defeated Republican and former Dodgers All-Star Steve Garvey on Tuesday night to win California's open U.S. seat. Senate.

The Associated Press declared the 64-year-old Schiff the winner shortly after polls closed, an indication of the congressman's significant support in a state where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly two to one.

After a costly and bitter Democratic primary, the general election campaign for the seat was sleepy and bordering on boring.

Schiff and his allies spent more than $35 million on ads during the primary that called Garvey “too conservative for California.” The move helped solidify Republican support behind Garvey and push him past bitter rival Rep. Katie Porter, an Orange County Democrat, who finished a distant third.

Garvey, 75, held few public events and struggled to gain traction with voters in a state that hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office in nearly two decades.

With a commanding lead in the polls, Schiff focused on strengthening Democrats in swing states, raising money for California's House candidates and traveling out of state to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris and his future Senate colleagues.

“If this had been the Senate race in 2000, the competitive nature of California politics and Garvey's relatively recent athletic achievements might have made him a very competitive candidate,” said Dan Schnur, a professor of political communication at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine. “But considering how the state has changed and how many years have passed, it became an almost impossible climb for him.”

A Senate seat, one of the most coveted in California politics, is rarely vacant. The late Senator Dianne Feinstein served in the Senate for more than three decades, and Senator Barbara Boxer for almost a quarter century.

A Senate seat can also be a launching pad for higher office, as was the case for Harris, President Nixon and California Gov. Pete Wilson.

The vote in California included two questions from the Senate. One urged voters to elect Schiff or Garvey to serve out the remainder of Feinstein's term, which ends in early January. The other asked voters to select one of the men for another six-year term in the Senate.

California's election results must be certified before Schiff can be sworn in, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said.

California will have two male senators for the first time in more than three decades. Senator Alex Padilla was elected in 2022 after being appointed to the post a year earlier when his predecessor, Kamala Harris, became vice president.

Garvey and Schiff entered the Senate race with name recognition and national profiles built in very different areas: Garvey in Chavez and Schiff on Capitol Hill.

During his 18 years as first baseman for the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, Garvey was known as “Mr. Clean” for his swinging home runs and wholesome image.

Garvey considered running for the Senate shortly after his retirement in 1988. But instead he was mired in scandal, including mounting debts, lawsuits and backlash over two children born out of wedlock.

He finally decided to run last year after deciding that the dysfunction in Washington was unbearable.

Garvey relied heavily on nostalgia to promote his campaign to California's older voters. He sold autographed baseballs for $100 on his campaign website and appeared at fundraisers under a banner showing him hitting a baseball.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, Schiff secured the conviction of Richard Miller, a former FBI agent charged with passing classified documents to the Soviet Union. After serving in the California Legislature as a pro-law enforcement Democrat, he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2002 and rose to national prominence 15 years later as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, where he investigated the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia in 2016.

As the lead prosecutor in Trump's first impeachment trial in the House, the Burbank Democrat – once derided by the former president as a “little pencilneck” – used Trump's bite to gain national notoriety. His role in the impeachment made him worthy of praise among other Democratsdemonized him among Republicans and prepared his campaign for the Senate.

Both men frequently referred to Trump during the election campaign.

Schiff criticized Garvey for voting for Trump three times, including in this year's primary, and tried to tie him to Trump's most unpopular policy proposals, including mass deportations of people living in the country illegally.

California voters, Schiff said, “don’t want a MAGA mini-me in a baseball uniform.”

Garvey called Schiff a liar for telling the American people that there was evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign. He also accused Schiff of pursuing a vendetta against Trump to boost his own career.

“How can you think about and focus on one man every day when you have millions of people to care for in California?” Garvey said during the only debate between the candidates last month. “I find it unreasonable.”

Garvey repeatedly said he voted for “the best man for the job” but did not seek the former president's support, something Trump called a “big mistake.”

The race's sharpest elbows were thrown during the primary, when California Democrats were forced to choose between Schiff, Porter and Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, all popular Democrats in their own right.

Schiff focused on his decades of experience, including his high-profile work leading Trump's first impeachment trial and his role on the Jan. 6 House committee investigating the 2021 attack on the Capitol. Lee drew on her longstanding progressive and anti-war stance. And Porter struck a populist tone, promising to confront corporate influence in Washington.

Garvey portrayed himself as an antidote to what he described as California's failed liberal leadership.

Times staff writer Paige St. John contributed to this report.