Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Last day of the membership drive, get those last minute pledges in. That's all I'm going to say about it now, I promise. I'm sure you've had enough of political analysis of the Super Tuesday Biden and Trump and Nikki Haley results, right? As important as those were, because it's the presidential race, there were some other very interesting down ballot races that have national implications as well, that haven't gotten as much coverage.

One of them is that Congressman Adam Schiff came in first in the primary for US Senate in California. That's the race to succeed the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, but apparently, Schiff helped his own cause by helping to raise money for the Republican he will now run against in November. What? Christian Paz, Senior Politics Reporter at Vox, wrote up some of the interesting non-presidential Super Tuesday primaries, including the California one, and he joins us now. Hi, Christian, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Christian Paz: Thanks so much. It's great to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: The California Senate primary is different from many other primaries, in that, it's nonpartisan. Is that the right term? Democrats, Republicans, anyone else run in one unified primary? Is that right?

Christian Paz: They run in one unified primary. It's been called similar to a jungle primary in other states, but the California-- I'm a Californian, we call it a top two system, where it doesn't matter what party you're from, if you come in the top two slots, and don't win a outright majority, then you'll be a shoe in for the general election show up.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know why they do it that way? What's supposed to be better for democracy by having a unified primary, rather than each party holding its own?

Christian Paz: The idea is, and it's a very recent thing also, the idea there's both the grimy political reason, which is that it's California, and it's easy to win as a Democrat in California. It's hard, especially, if you're a Republican, the party hasn't won a statewide race since 2006 to actually make it to the general election. The democratic reason, the pro-democracy reason is that, this way it gives Republicans a better opportunity of making it into the general election, because you still have a large number of voters, and then at the same time, it'll be better for democracy because, given that California is more Democratic, more democratic options for folks who want to choose a Democrat, probably, it will be better for them in that way.

Brian Lehrer: It more represents the electorate. Adam Schiff is well known among other things, I don't have to tell many of our listeners for being the lead house manager for the first impeachment of Donald Trump, and he is what The New York Times calls "Trump's chief congressional tormentor," [chuckles] but not to bury the lead, the headline here is, Schiff helped a Republican to come in second in this unified primary, so Schiff wouldn't have to run in November against another Democrat. Would you put it that way?

Christian Paz: I think that's a pretty concise way to put it, because the big thing here was that Schiff did not want to have to go all in on more months of campaigning when it was apparent from the start that he was going to be the favorite. Why not use the system in your favor? People forget that, I think the last time I checked, there are more Republican voters in California than there are in Florida.

Part of what happens when you're California, and the largest, most populous state in the country is, you also have a lot of Republicans. If you get enough of those folks to tune in, they probably won't elect a Republican statewide, but they'll, with a divided democratic field, they'll probably push somebody pretty high up. What Schiff in the campaign did was essentially give the Republican Steve Garvey, he's a baseball legend, a Dodgers first baseman, give him enough name recognition, and remind people that, oh, he's actually running as a Republican. "Okay, well, then if I'm upset at the Democrats, this cycle, might as well turn out in this primary, and shake things up a little bit."

Brian Lehrer: How did he do that? How did he help the Republican Steve Garvey? Was there funding? A pro Garvey advertising? Did he say nice things about him? Did he just use his name a lot? How did Adam Schiff, who after all, most people in America who are not from California, not from his district even, in Southern California, only have heard of Adam Schiff, even though he is been around for a while, he's 63-years-old, only have heard of Adam Schiff since Trump became President, and he became this chief tormentor of Donald Trump through impeachment and everything. Adam Schiff would-- That would surprise people is my point around the country. What? Adam Schiff of all people? That partisan Democrat helping a Republican, how did he do it?

Christian Paz: It's a very similar strategy to the one that was used by Democrats in 2022. I know a lot of those Democratic candidates were scrutinized, because they were running ads essentially as if they were trying to criticize the Republican, but the actual subtext was, these would run in Republican-heavy areas, or with Republican-heavier audiences, and let them know about planks in this candidate's platform that would be more appealing to them.

Anything about allegiance to Trump, or having made MAGA comments, or criticizing the integrity of the election, that was what was used in the midterms in some of these swing states and swing races. It ended up working in the primary of getting the more extreme Republican to win the primary, so that it would be a bit easier to contrast with the Democrat that was running in the race.

What shifted was a little bit of that, a little bit of running, sending mailers out, running television ads, talking about the Republican threat that Steve Garvey posed, which is hard because Steve Garvey is not a politician. I think the easiest way to describe it is, if any of the listeners here have watched Veep, there is actually a scene where the incumbent, or the favorite to win a nomination is running against a baseball legend, who is just talking in platitudes, and doesn't really know anything about politics.

That's kind of a parallel here, but it was mostly about reminding Democrats, one, that this person is out there, and by extension, because a lot of these were running also in pretty large media markets, exposing the fact that he's a Republican to Republican voters, so that they would know that, "Oh, this person has said nicer things about Trump before, he's maybe not as crazy as other Republicans, good to know about him."

Brian Lehrer: It gave Republicans awareness of Garvey, and motivation to bother to vote at all in that open primary in California, so they could choose Garvey. Now, the Democrats shift was most trying to sideline are Congresswoman Katie Porter and Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Would it be right to say that Porter and Lee were both running, or have records to the left of Adam Schiff?

Christian Paz: Absolutely, and I think it represents some of the splits among progressives, because Katie Porter is much more of a newer form of progressive, very-- More focused on a Bernie and Elizabeth Warren-style economic populism. Her big thing has been antitrust legislation, and going after the big banks and rich corporate C-suites and executives for spending, and for hiking prices during the last few years.

Whereas Barbara Lee is the older school progressive who made her name through anti-war activism, through social justice movements, through very nitty gritty community organizing, local networks like that, and a lot of that being in the Bay Area that she represents. It showed that it would be hard for the progressive candidate to differentiate themselves, him or herself from the more centrist Adam Schiff, just because Schiff has been around, and for a while within the establishment and moderate wings of the Democratic Party.

Now, that there were two of those progressive candidates trying to distinguish themselves, it made it a bit of a bigger challenge. Also, the key division here is, these are all well-known folks in California, and also, especially, Schiff and Porter, very prolific fundraisers which made this race incredibly, incredibly expensive for a safe, democratic seat. Also, because it's California, California senate seats don't often become available, and the fact that there were two open Senate seats in the last five years is a lot of change that came to California.

Brian Lehrer: Kamala Harris, if people don't remember, came out of the Senate from California to become-- Is that right? To become Vice President. After she was Attorney General there. Of course, now with the passing of Dianne Feinstein. How much is Democratic Party California furious at Adam Schiff, even as their Senate candidate, who they'll probably vote for now, for the most part, for what looks like a dirty trick against two of their own? Not to mention that it's a white male playing that help a Republican game to sideline two women, and one of them a woman of color at that.

Christian Paz: It's interesting because I think that there would've been a lot more anger, had Barbara Lee formally conceded. I don't think she's actually conceded the election yet, because famously, California takes forever to count its ballots, because it's massive, and it sends ballots out to everyone. There's a lot of mail-in ballots that are still to be counted.

Katie Porter came out after the first results were released and the election was called to say that-- Obviously, attacked Adam Schiff for Dirty Tricks and then used the term "To rig the election."

Then, that spawned a whole mess of other backlash to Porter, because her argument was that, she didn't take any outside Super PAC money, whereas Schiff did, and her argument was that, big spenders poured in a lot of money to boost Schiff, and to attack her, or to skew her record. It was an argument that dark money, and big money pollute American politics, but the usage of the word "rig", I think definitely turned a lot of people off, because that's the kind of language you've been hearing for years now from the Republican side.

I think that also muddled the water of how much criticism Schiff would receive, because Schiff did win. Just about every major population center in California, and right behind him came, Steve Garvey, and Katie Porter came in last even in-- Kate Porter came in third, and then Barbara Lee came in fourth even in LA County, even in the Bay Area.

In Orange County, one of those counties that has historically been a swing district now, but it was historically a Republican district that has become a big swing district. Steve Garvey came in first there, followed by Schiff, followed by Porter. Porter not being able to outperform Schiff, even in her home county, you do wonder how much of this was rigging the system, versus just being outspent, and out-campaigned.

It's California. It's expensive to run this, and it might be a good thing for Democrats outside of California for there not to be more money being poured into this kind of black hole of California media markets, and campaign, or the general,

Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us, my guest for another few minutes is Christian Paz, Senior Political Reporter at Vox, on very interesting US Senate primary in California that didn't get as much attention, obviously, as the presidential primary is on Super Tuesday. Does this ever backfire? You said that this kind of tactic has been used in the past to help elevate Republicans to be the general election candidate against Democrats, because the Democrats think certain kinds of Trumpy Republicans, for example, would be easier to beat, but help them want to be dictator to help save democracy, could be a high stakes gamble, because what if a wannabe dictator wins, and then destroys democracy? Has this ever backfired on the Democrats?

Christian Paz: We're going to get our first test, probably, in a presidential year this time around. The only real track record that we have to compare against is the midterms when it worked in Secretary of state races, and Senate races, and competitive house districts, just about every one of those extremist Republicans that beat out a moderate that received help from the Democrats, or from outside spenders, lost the race to a Democrat.

It paid off there, but obviously, midterm electorates are very different from presidential electorates. Obviously, this is also California. The other place that we're going to get a test of this is in North Carolina, where there was a pretty important primary that happened there on the Republican side with Mark Robinson being-- He's the current Lieutenant Governor, but he's been called a firebrand politician, extremist, but some of those terms just aren't strong enough to capture how many incendiary things he said before about LGBTQ people, about women, about abortion rights, about gun control.

He beat out two other more moderate and conventional-- Not moderate, but conventional Republican candidates for the nomination to be the Republican party's candidate for governor in North Carolina. He won that. Democrats there were definitely running ads about just how much of a threat he was. He'll face off against a pretty standard Democrat, the current Attorney General Josh Stein, who's the Democratic--

Brian Lehrer: I wonder if you think that the fact that in North Carolina, the Republican gubernatorial candidate is going to be this radical, and, oh, my goodness, some of the things that he said, "Being LGBTQ is going to destroy civilization." He actually said that, right? North Carolina though, is a very important swing state in the presidential race, besides the governor race that, that guy is running in. Could it have implications for the presumed Biden-Trump matchup there?

Christian Paz: Absolutely. I think North Carolina's unique in that, it tends to vote for Republicans at the top of the ticket, but then down ballot, it's elected Democratic governors a few times, Democratic Attorney Generals. There's a lot more ticket-splitting that happens in North Carolina. That is another reason why it'll be important for Democrats to not just campaign positively on their side, but to just get people to know just what this candidate is saying.

Then, just to pivot back to California really quickly, the only other risk from elevating Steve Garvey and a Republican like this statewide is down ballot that Republicans remain engaged in Congressional districts and swing districts that are up for grabs. That is the other--

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] More Republican turnout because they'll have Steve Garvey at the top of the ticket to vote for who they think might win, even though they know Trump won't win California's electoral votes at the presidential level. Right?

Christian Paz: That's exactly right. Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Just one possible correction of something that I said earlier. I think I said that Schiff was helping Garvey raise money for his campaign. Is that inaccurate, as opposed to just, he was helping Garvey raise awareness of his campaign?

Christian Paz: It was the awareness which, by extension, would've helped him raise money. Schiff was spending pretty heavily on elevating this profile.

Brian Lehrer: Christian Paz, Senior Politics Reporter for Vox. Very interesting stuff. Thank you very much.

Christian Paz: Of course. Have a great one.

[00:17:35] [END OF AUDIO]

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