A trio of Democratic California Senate candidates spent over $62 million campaigning for a seat that is already historically held by their party, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.
California Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee had spent $19.4 million and $4.3 million on their Senate campaigns, respectively, as of December, only to be disqualified in the state’s open primary, according to FEC records. Their congressional colleague, Rep. Adam Schiff, spent over $38.3 million on his Senate campaign, which netted him roughly a third of the votes in the primary and positioned him to advance to the general election in November.
Porter blamed “an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election” on her loss in the primary, according to a Wednesday social media post. (RELATED: California Senate Race Thickens As Democrat Places Ad Buy With Fox)
While millions have been spent on the Senate race so far, polling data and California’s partisan breakdown indicate that Democrats have a high chance of retaining the seat.
Recent polls show Democrats carrying California’s Senate seat by double-digits, according to FiveThirtyEight. Republicans have not won a Senate election in California since 1988.
Californians also skew heavily Democratic, with 46.9% of the state’s voters being registered as Democrats compared to just 23.8% who are registered Republicans, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
“Democrats have, in recent years, demonstrated the tendency to dream a little too big and pile untold sums of campaign cash in the coffers of a litany of no-hopers,” journalist Jason Linkins said of the California race in October 2023. “But if Democrats are not careful, they could screw up from the opposite direction, denying critical resources to winnable races in the service of a seat they’re destined to get anyway.”
The candidates weren’t the only ones to dump large sums of cash into a deep-blue Senate race.
Outside groups spent over $10.5 million either supporting or opposing Porter, Lee and Schiff’s campaigns, FEC records show. One of the biggest spenders in the California race was a super PAC backed by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and others in the cryptocurrency industry.
Fairshake PAC spent a little over $10 million on advertisements opposing Porter, according to FEC records. DMFI PAC, a committee focused on electing pro-Israel Democrats to Congress, meanwhile, spent just under $20,000 on print advertisements supporting Schiff.
Ovrsite PAC, a pro-Porter super PAC, spent about $500,000 on ads supporting her candidacy, per FEC records.
Schiff and his allied super PAC adopted a tactic of running ads to paint the primary Republican in the California Senate race, Steve Garvey, as pro-Trump and too conservative for the state. Standing Strong PAC, a pro-Schiff super PAC, spent roughly $9 million on advertisements targeting Garvey, FEC records show.
Among the two leading candidates for U.S. Senate — there are two very different visions for California.
Watch our latest ad ⤵︎ pic.twitter.com/mCm6LT1P3o
— Adam Schiff (@AdamSchiff) February 1, 2024
Porter called the ads “cynical” and accused Schiff of using them to “boost” Garvey so he could advance to the November general election instead of another Democrat.
The two top performers in California’s open primary advance to the general election, which would have allowed there to be two Democrats.
The Schiff, Porter and Lee campaigns did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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