![]() Though Porter has condemned it (including in her first ad of the cycle), some mainstream media reporters have called it a reasonable political strategy to maximize success.īut that’s not all Schiff and the forces who want him elected are doing. Other candidates in California have used this tactic to try to make life easier on them in a general election, going back to Gray Davis hand-picking Republican nobody Bill Simon in 2002. ![]() Barbara Lee is also running polls have shown her consistently in fourth place.) Polls show Garvey and Porter neck and neck for second place in California’s “top-two” primary. In deep-blue California, Garvey would have even less of a chance than Akin did in Missouri, and Schiff sees that as a much easier road than facing Porter in the general election. Just about every tactic that centrists and Republicans have used to upend Democratic primaries in the past several years is being used to support Schiff. Essentially, McCaskill succeeded in getting the woefully inept Akin through the GOP primary, after which he said that women victimized by “legitimate rape” never got pregnant, and lost handily that November. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who in 2012 ran spots that appeared to condemn Todd Akin’s extremism, but which really sought to widen Akin’s appeal to conservative voters. In the shorthand of political professionals, these are “McCaskill ads,” following the strategy of Sen. The expectation is that this will be a seven-figure ad buy. The ad doesn’t mention Schiff at all, harping instead on Garvey being “too conservative for California” and how he’s “rising quickly in the polls,” a signal to Fox News voters that a vote for Garvey would be meaningful. A pro-Schiff super PAC is running an anti-Garvey spot on Fox News, even though Schiff himself has called for a Democratic boycott of the network. Schiff’s campaign has also sent mailers to Republican households boosting Garvey. Schiff’s widely aired attack on Garvey is meant to remake him in the image of a MAGA supporter, so the Republican base will be comfortable with voting for him. But it also wouldn’t attract enough primary support from the relatively hard-right Republican base in California to consolidate the field, as other hard-right, no-money candidates are running. That message would likely fail to sway a deep-blue state like California that hasn’t selected a Republican for statewide office since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. In the debates, the only high-profile earned media of the cycle, Garvey has been reluctant to say whether he would support Trump again, and has tried to carve out a moderate Republican stance on various issues. ![]() Garvey, with only around $300,000 in cash on hand by the end of last year to run a race in a state of 39 million people, has no way to broadcast his message across the state. Porter is now swimming upstream in a race where a number of forces that have intervened to influence the will of Democratic voters have come together. Just about every tactic that centrists and Republicans have used to upend Democratic primaries in the past several years is being used to support Schiff, from banking pro-Israel and crypto funds in their treasury to their effort to use cold cash to select an opponent. That’s not the only tactic Schiff and his allies are using in his bid to succeed the late Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. Schiff’s move to boost Garvey is intended to make sure he doesn’t face a fellow Democrat-Porter-in the runoff.) (In California’s “jungle primary,” candidates of all parties appear on the same ballot, and the top two finishers move on to the November runoff. Porter’s point is that Schiff, who leads in most polling and has the most money to spend in the March 5 primary-more than five times his closest competitor-is effectively lending part of his war chest to Garvey to help him consolidate the Republican vote and advance to the general election, which Schiff believes, not without reason, that he can win in a cakewalk once Garvey is his opponent. The ad notes that Garvey “voted for Trump twice, and supported Republicans for years, including far-right conservatives.” Porter is referring to Schiff’s first campaign ad, where he contrasts himself with Steve Garvey, the former baseball star and the main Republican in the race.
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