Democrats brawl in California Senate race as progressives fear a lockout

BURBANK, Calif. — Open U.S. Senate seats don’t come along often in California elections. There has only been one in the last 30 years since it turned into a safe blue state. So it’s no surprise that the contest to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein has devolved into a pitched battle between prominent Democratic House members eyeing the coveted job.

The race has sparked fiery attacks between Democratic establishment favorite and frontrunner Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank and economic-populist Rep. Katie Porter of Orange County fueled by some chicanery to try to exploit the state’s top-two system. In California, all candidates compete together in a single primary, with the two top vote-getters in the March 5 contest advancing to face each other in November, regardless of party.

The other main candidates in the race are progressive Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland and Republican former baseball player Steve Garvey.

“My view has always been: run like you’re in last place. So we’re running hard,” Schiff said in an interview here in his campaign office. “But knock on wood, I feel good about where we are.”

Schiff said his top priorities if elected senator would be to act on gun safety, codify abortion rights, bolster nationwide voting rights, expand the Supreme Court and slap term limits on justices — and he'd vote to nuke the Senate's filibuster rule to achieve all that.

Polls consistently find that Schiff leads the pack to advance to the general election. But it’s unclear who he’ll face, with Garvey and Porter closely competing for the second spot. Lee sits in a distant fourth place, having struggled to gain traction. While some surveys show Garvey narrowly ahead of Porter for second place, a newly released Public Policy