California Republican Senate candidate Steve Garvey, the famed former Los Angeles Dodger, is making headway in the polls with a fraction of the fundraising, proving baseball name recognition in the deep blue state might be able to help sneak up on high-profile Democrats.
Garvey (27%) is leading Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., (25%) and the crowded field in the latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released late this week, potentially getting the Dodger in a high-profile runoff for the seat of late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Democrats including Reps. Katie Porter, D-Calif., (19%) and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., (8%) are splitting the Democrat vote backed by their millions, and Garvey is getting a boost from Schiff in advertising, too.
Schiff is going on the offensive in his $25 million ad campaign, targeting Garvey as an ally to his nemesis, former President Donald Trump and potentially making November's general election a Trump vs. Schiff proxy battle.
"Two leading candidates for Senate; 2 very different visions for California," a Schiff ad narrator says, noting Garvey "is too conservative for California" and voted twice for Trump.
The strategy has upset Porter.
"We need honest leadership, not political games," Porter said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
California is a deep blue state, but it is also a state that likes fame. Garvey was a popular baseball player, and California is a state that brought actors Ronald Reagan to the White House and Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor's mansion.
"In a deep blue state like California, it might seem like a surprise that a Republican can take the lead in a primary election, but this is an unusual one," the Times wrote, analyzing the poll results leaving Garvey in a stunning lead. "The Democratic primary is very competitive, with Porter and Schiff major figures in the party, and Lee, a popular figure with the left. So they are dividing Democratic votes in the deeply blue state."
Garvey was polling in the single digits, though, before this surge, and he has just $1.4 million through mid-February on his campaign — a fraction of Schiff and Porter — according to the Times.
Schiff and his allies have pumped $35 million into his primary campaign, mostly to box out his Democrat opponents to home in on the Trump-backing Garvey.
"While the message will turn off Democratic voters in the state, it may increase the former baseball player's appeal to Republican voters — as it is designed to do, according to two political strategists," the Times' political reporter Benjamin Oreskes said.
Super Tuesday's California primary will decide if California and America is going to get a Schiff vs. Trump proxy match-up.
"The calculus is plain: Schiff is hoping to clinch the Senate seat in the March 5 primary by lifting his weakest possible opponent, Garvey, into a November runoff," according to the Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak. "Brazen? Sure. Cynical or anti-democratic, as some critics claim? Not a bit.
"This is politics, after all. Not patty-cake."
Presidential adviser Dick Morris cannot wait for the proxy battle in California this November.
"One of the things that I find fascinating about the polling on Super Tuesday," Morris told Newsmax's "Saturday Report," is the Trump "surrogate" Garvey's lead.
"For goodness sake, when you combine the Republicans and the Democrats, it indicates that even California may be in play. It's a startling conclusion."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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