California Senate: New poll shows Schiff leading and tight race for second spot

The Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll showed Schiff leading with 21% support followed by Porter at 17%, Garvey at 13% and Oakland's Rep. Barbara Lee at 9% in the March 5 primary for which ballots will be mailed out Feb. 5.

A new poll Friday showed Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank consolidating support for his bid to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein with Orange County’s Rep. Katie Porter leading a tight race for second place against Republican former baseball star Steve Garvey and Oakland’s Rep. Barbara Lee.

The Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll showed Schiff leading with 21% support from likely voters followed by Porter at 17%, Garvey at 13% and Lee at 9% in the March 5 primary for which ballots will be mailed out Feb. 5. It also found 21% remain undecided, and 19% divided their preferences among 23 other candidates drawing less than 3% support each.

The race for second place is key among the frontrunners as the two candidates with the most votes will advance to the November general election under California’s “top two” primary system. The race had appeared to be a three-way battle among Democrat congress members before Garvey, the retired baseball All-Star, announced in the fall he was running.

“Representative Schiff appears to be in a good position with respect to the top two primary,” said IGS co-director Eric Schickler, but he added that “with so many voters undecided, there is still considerable space for a range of outcomes in the primary.”

Friday’s survey showed a notable shift from IGS’ Nov. 3 poll that also had Porter with 17% but leading by a hair over Schiff’s 16% — essentially a tie — with Garvey at 10% and Lee at 9%. An IGS poll Sept. 7 showed Schiff with 20%, Porter with 17% and Lee tied with Garvey — who hadn’t yet entered the race — at 7% each.

Together, the series of IGS polls shows little movement for Porter and Lee and continued gains for Garvey, a former Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres first baseman who was part of the Dodgers World Series winning team that defeated the New York Yankees in 1981.

The IGS poll offered Porter an encouraging second place after two polls in December by Politico-Morning Consult and SurveyUSA showed Garvey ahead of Porter, prompting panicked fundraising pitches to her supporters that “I could lose our race for the U.S. Senate.”

But the poll also showed continued momentum for Garvey.

California voters will be asked to vote twice for the Senate seat: Once for a candidate to serve out the remaining weeks of Feinstein’s term after the November election and again for a full, six-year term starting in January 2025.

Candidates must file separately for each race, and the field for the remainder of Feinstein’s term is much smaller — 27 for a full term, seven for the partial term. Friday’s IGS poll took the unusual step of surveying on both fields.

The survey for the full term field showed declining support to two other Republicans, lawyer Eric Early and business executive James Bradley, with 3% support each, down from 4% for Early and 7% for Bradley in the last IGS Senate race poll.

In the unexpired term field, Schiff still led with 21% support followed by Porter with 18%, Garvey with 17%, Lee with 12% and Early with 11%. The takeaway, IGS said in a news release, is that Garvey has an opening to consolidate the GOP vote and vault ahead of Porter to place second in the primary if he can rally Republicans around him.

The poll also tested likely voters on their views of the ongoing Israel war with Hamas in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians, one of few issues that divide the top Democrats. It found overall that 42% felt Israel’s response was too much, 28% about right, 10% too little and 20% with no opinion.

Backers of each of the three leading Democratic candidates are in general agreement that the Israeli military’s response to the Hamas attack on Israel has been too much, IGS said. But 55% of Garvey supporters say the Israeli response is about right and 26% say it has been too little.

Feinstein, who died Sept. 29 at age 90 as her health deteriorated while she served out the last year of what she said would be her final term in office, had become a Democratic icon over more than three decades in the Senate.

Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, who was president of EMILY’s List, a Washington-based organization that helps elect pro-choice Democratic women to serve the remainder of Feinstein’s term. Butler said in October she wouldn’t join the race for a full term.

November’s race could be very different depending on whether two Democrats or a Democrat and Republican make the runoff. Schiff, the frontrunner in fundraising as well as most polls, would face a fierce challenge in November against either of the leading Democrats, Porter and Lee, who appeal to younger, more liberal voters.

Because of California’s lopsided voter registration, with 47% registered Democratic, 24% Republican and 22% with no party preference as of October, a Republican would face a steep hill against a Democrat in November.

In last year’s race for California’s other Senate seat, appointed Democrat Alex Padilla easily defeated little-known Republican lawyer Mark Meuser in November. Still, Garvey’s star power and personal wealth could appeal to independent voters and make it a closer contest.

Schickler said “it will be a very different race in November” for Schiff “if his opponent is another Democrat, like Porter or Lee, who receive greater support among strong liberals and young voters, or if he opposes conservative Republican Garvey.”

The poll of 4,470 likely voters online in English and Spanish surveyed from Jan. 4-8 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points