Slate just published a damning [ [link removed] ]exposé about Adam Schiff spending
millions of dollars of Democratic donor money "to elevate his Trump-voting
Republican opponent and juice Republican turnout."

Schiff’s "diabolical election gambit" (Slate’s words) is about gaming
California’s "jungle primary" where the top two vote-getters in the March
primary advance to the general election – and edging Katie Porter out of
the race and out of Congress.

Slate writes, "Facing a Republican in the general election would be a sure
victory for [Schiff]...some polling shows Schiff losing to Porter
head-to-head." Slate also reports the tactic has "plenty of downside risks
for Democrats elsewhere."

If this isn’t how you think Democrats should handle elections, [ [link removed] ]please
donate $3 ($30 would be even better if you can) to Katie Porter’s campaign
so she can stay in this race and we can keep her voice in Congress.

Thanks for being a bold progressive.

-- Adam Green, PCCC co-founder

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[ [link removed] ]Slate logo

Republicans Hate Adam Schiff. The Feeling Isn’t Mutual.

The Senate candidate’s sneaky campaign tactic is a danger to all Democrats not
named Adam Schiff.

[ [link removed] ]Turn on images to see Steve Garvey with 'his new best friend.'

FEB 08, 2024

Followers of Donald Trump’s first impeachment, or its long, cantankerous
aftermath, know well that Republicans hate Democrat Adam Schiff. Trump
hates him so much he even gave him a nickname, Shifty Schiff—rare
treatment for a politician who hasn’t even had the temerity to run against
Trump in an election. After Republicans retook the House of
Representatives in the beginning of 2023, one of Kevin McCarthy’s first
moves as speaker was to keep up the contempt with an official
congressional censure of his fellow Californian.

But the feeling isn’t mutual. The right’s villainization did nothing but
help Schiff. The congressman parlayed his role as House impeachment
manager into a national profile and a near permanent guest slot on MSNBC;
he used his censure vote to appeal to Democratic donors nationwide,
amassing a $35 million war chest. For a House rep who has never run a
competitive race, that’s unthinkable cash—money that is underwriting his
current Senate campaign. And now, as that race’s election day in
California nears, Schiff is using those millions to … elevate his
Trump-voting Republican opponent and juice Republican turnout.

It’s a diabolical election gambit made possible by California’s jungle
primary system, a crowded Democratic field, and the one-party nature of
California politics (along with a little bit of Schiff’s own
shamelessness). Rather than the traditional, discreet Democratic and
Republican primaries leading to a red-vs.-blue November general, the race
to replace the deceased Dianne Feinstein will be a November runoff between
the top two vote getters in March 5’s primary, regardless of party. Schiff
is working hard to ensure that he’s in the top two; he’s working even
harder to ensure that Republican Steve Garvey is also.

According to seemingly all available polling, Schiff holds a narrow lead
over fellow congressional Democrats Katie Porter and Barbara Lee.
California is effectively a one-party state, and only a Democrat can
realistically win statewide, aided by the fact that the state’s Republican
Party is largely dysfunctional. Facing a Republican in the runoff would be
a sure victory for any Democrat. But if Schiff heads to a runoff against
Porter or Lee, the race will be competitive and brutal; some polling shows
Schiff losing to Porter head-to-head.

And if the state’s GOP infrastructure is bad, Garvey is abysmal. He’s one
of its least formidable candidates for higher office in recent memory. He
face-planted at the recent debate; he hasn’t bothered to come up with a
platform, or any real policies, or even decide whom he’ll back for
president. With only $300,000 on hand, Garvey has a stockpile that, at
less than 1/100th of Schiff’s, is laughable. As Alex Schultz wrote in
Slate this week, Garvey is not at all a serious candidate. He’s not even
trying.

So Schiff’s campaign is working tirelessly on his behalf, effectively
running the Garvey campaign by proxy. In high-budget prime-time TV
ads—literally the most expensive California airtime money can buy,
including in the Los Angeles media market during the Grammys and the Bay
Area during the San Francisco 49ers NFC championship game—Schiff has
blasted Garvey’s name and face all over the airwaves, in a
not-at-all-subtle appeal to Republicans. The first half of this 30-second
spot, a straightforward attempt to consolidate the GOP vote around Garvey,
focuses entirely on Garvey: "Steve Garvey, the leading Republican, is too
conservative for California. … He voted for Trump twice." The Trump line
is particularly rich, given that Garvey—at least understanding his state’s
basic voter makeup—has been quietly trying to distance himself from Trump
on the campaign trail. It’s a coy move from Schiff, drawing in
conservatives—who likely know and know to hate Schiff, and who might be
inclined to sit out this race—to direct their vote not to one of the
candidates who might actually beat him, but to Garvey, who stands no
chance.

California may be a state without a functional Republican Party, but it’s
not without Republicans. Trump got clobbered there in 2020, but he still
pulled in 6 million votes. In a race in which every candidate is polling
in the teens and 20s, that’s more than enough vote share to tip the
balance.

But the ad is not all Schiff is doing. In an expensive, glossy direct-mail
campaign, Schiff is also sending mailers to Republican voters highlighting
Garvey. The top of one flyer features side-by-side headshots of Schiff and
Garvey and highlights Garvey as getting 19 percent of the vote compared to
Schiff’s 28 percent, well within striking distance, beneath the header
"Two Leading Candidates for United States Senate." There’s not a mean word
about Garvey on the front; flip it over, and there’s Garvey’s curriculum
vitae, "a former Major League Baseball player, currently a businessman and
philanthropist … voted for Donald Trump twice."

"I wonder how much Adam Schiff is spending sending mail to high-propensity
Republican voters?" posted Republican California Assemblymember Joe
Patterson on X upon receiving one of these mailers. Only at the very
bottom is any indication that the flyer hasn’t come from the Garvey
campaign itself.

Because, you’ll recall, the Garvey campaign couldn’t afford to do any of
this stuff. With his fundraising pittance, Garvey can’t get anywhere near
television, certainly not during the very most watched live prime-time
broadcasts, meaning some of the very most expensive ad slots outside the
Super Bowl. It’s unlikely he could even fund a sustained, targeted
high-end direct-mail effort statewide given the state of his "campaign."

All’s fair in politics, but it’s still a little surprising and more than a
little cynical that the man who raised millions from Democrats after his
censure vote for "fighting back" against the "MAGA base," in his own
words, is now using those very same millions to elevate the political
prospects of a Trump-voting Republican. In other words, Schiff is now
using his coffers to fight for the MAGA base. And not only in this race.

Although this plan might work out for Schiff personally, there are plenty
of downside risks for Democrats elsewhere. If Schiff succeeds in juicing
Republican turnout for Garvey, it stands to reason that those Republicans
will also vote Republican down the ballot. Garvey himself has no shot of
winning, but there may well be closer races in purple House and state
legislative districts, school boards, and more that could be swung by a
surge in Republican turnout that Schiff is spending millions to stoke. By
contrast, given California’s deep blueness, in a runoff between Schiff and
Porter or Lee, down-ballot voters would have a much lower risk of
threatening future Democratic control of Congress or gaining a stronger
foothold in Sacramento, even in a presidential election year. It would
also plainly be a better exercise of the democratic process for a
Democratic state to choose between two very different Democratic
politicians. Schiff has for decades held down the right-most flank of the
Dem caucus; Lee has an equal tenure on the party’s left flank; Porter,
though younger, has actual progressive bona fides too. Purely as a matter
of small-D democratic representation, this runoff ought to be a rare
opportunity for the state’s supermajority to express its preference.

If Garvey does squeak into the top two, it will be a much greater triumph
of the Schiff campaign than if Schiff himself finishes No. 1. The question
California voters will have to ask themselves, then, is whether the man
who made himself the face of anti-MAGA accountability should be propping
up shadow Republican campaigns for MAGA-loving politicians and doing their
dirty work with money that Democrats could very well use in competitive
races elsewhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this isn’t how you think Democrats should handle elections, [ [link removed] ]please
donate $3 (or $30 if you can) to Katie Porter’s campaign so she can stay
in this race and we can keep her voice in Congress.


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