Republican Steve Garvey Advances in CA Senate Race, Will Face Adam Schiff

Republican Steve Garvey has advanced to California's general election in the race to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Garvey will face Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA); Reps. Barbara Lee and Katie Porter were also in the race.

The exact percentage of the vote each candidate received won't be known for days at least, and possibly weeks, given California's notoriously slow vote counting.

Seeing all of those counties in red is heartwarming.

Garvey did even better in the special election portion of the election, which is to fill the remainder of Feinstein's term. (Laphonza Butler was appointed to serve until a special election could be called.) There were only 7 candidates in the special election.

Garvey addressed exuberant supporters around 9:30 Tuesday night and announced, "Welcome to the California comeback."

Welcome to the California comeback.
What you all are feeling tonight is what it's like to hit a walk-off home run. Keep in mind, this is the first game of a double-header, so keep the evening of November 5 open, as we will celebrate again.

While Schiff has attempted to paint Garvey, a beloved figure among baseball fans in California, as a scary extremist, Garvey used his victory speech as a way to connect with everyday Californians who no longer see California as the Golden State. He invited Californians who are struggling to pay bills and "putting $10 of gas in the tank instead of 10 gallons," and who are worried about violent crime and the wide-open border with Mexico to join his campaign.

Given the Democrats' registration advantage, Garvey's got a massive task ahead of him to even be competitive in the fall. The last California Republican to serve in the U.S. Senate was Pete Wilson, who was in office from 1983 to 1991. While there was a Republican on the ballot for California's last U.S. Senate election, in 2022, for a decade before that Californians only had Democrats on the general election ballot for U.S. Senate. So, the fact that any Republican is advancing to the general is a win in and of itself, and will definitely help with turnout for down-ballot races.

And, two of the most extreme Democrats in Congress have now been fired: Barbara Lee and Katie Porter will go home at the end of this session of the House of Representatives. That's extremely good news.