California Won’t Have a Woman in the Senate for the 1st Time in more than 30 Years

Photo of Adam Schiff by Gage Skidmore via wikipedia commons.

By Amanda Becker

Originally published by The 19th

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff has won first place in California’s nonpartisan primary for the U.S. Senate, followed by Republican Steve Garvey, setting up a general election matchup in the liberal state that strongly favors Schiff.

Returns showed Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Rep. Barbara Lee in third and fourth places, respectively, rounding out the top tier.

For the first time in more than 30 years, come November, California will not have a woman serving in the U.S. Senate.

Schiff, 63, built a national profile by managing former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial and serving on the special committee that investigated the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He was the candidate favored by the party establishment and snagged high-profile endorsements from fellow California Democrats such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the first woman U.S. House speaker, and former Sen. Barbara Boxer, who represented the state in the upper chamber from 1993 until her retirement in 2017. Schiff’s campaign raised more than $30 million headed into Tuesday’s primary.

Garvey, 75 was the lone Republican in the top tier of the primary in the liberal-leaning state. Garvey is a motivational speaker who previously played for two California Major League Baseball teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. The political novice struggled to fundraise and delivered weak debate performances.

Porter, 50, was the youngest candidate in the top tier. She was a bankruptcy expert and law professor who trained under legal and political mentor Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for whom she named a daughter. Porter flipped an Orange County district for Democrats in 2018, then quickly made a name for herself by brashly grilling corporate executives during congressional hearings in made-for-TV exchanges. Central to Porter’s case for the Senate was that as a divorced mother of three school-aged kids, she knows personally how her party’s leadership affects the next generation.

Lee, 77, has represented her Oakland district for more than 25 years as an unapologetic progressive. She was the sole “no” vote in Congress against authorizing the use of military force after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. While serving in the state house, she authored California’s Violence Against Women Act. While in Congress, she helped develop a program to combat HIV and AIDS worldwide that is credited with saving at least 25 million lives. She nevertheless entered the Senate race seen as an underdog when compared to her House colleagues.

The winner in November will be sworn into the seat held for more than three decades by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who at the time of her death in September 2023 was the upper chamber’s longest-serving woman. With Feinstein’s health failing, Porter entered the Senate contest in January 2023. She was quickly followed by Schiff. Lee announced her bid in February, shortly after Feinstein announced she would retire at the end of her term.

All three Democratic lawmakers had to give up their House seats to run.

When now-Vice President Kamala Harris joined the administration and left her Senate seat, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pick to replace her was Alex Padilla, who became the first Latinx senator to represent the state. At that point, the number of Black women in the Senate dropped to zero. Padilla was later elected to a full six-year term.

Newsom pledged to appoint a Black woman to replace Feinstein if she could not complete her term. When she died, he got a second chance to appoint a senator. Lee’s allies, including the Congressional Black Caucus, pressured him to pick  her as Feinstein’s replacement until a special election could be held. He demurred, saying he did not want to choose someone who was already in the race, instead appointing Laphonza Butler, the former leader of EMILY’s List, which works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights.

Once Butler finishes Feinstein’s term, no matter the results of the general election in November, California will not have a woman in the Senate for the first time since Feinstein and Boxer were elected in 1992, the first Year of the Woman in U.S. politics.

Porter in particular pointed out that Schiff’s focus on Garvey during the primary only elevated the Republican’s stature, leaving little space for a woman to move onto the general election. Schiff’s gambit was seen as a play to run against a Republican in November, when Democrats are strongly favored in statewide contests, instead of Porter, against whom he would likely have faced a tougher race.