Full term
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican former baseball star Steve Garvey will face off in November for California’s highly coveted U.S. Senate seat.
The race is a once-in-decades opportunity to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (and succeed caretaker Sen. Laphonza Butler). The winner in November — and Schiff starts with a big edge — could hold onto the seat for decades to come.
Read more about the job expected of whoever ultimately becomes a U.S. senator ▶
The AP declared Schiff the winner of one ticket out of the primary, and then Garvey for the second.
In the separate election to serve out the final two months of Feinstein’s term, Schiff is also leading Garvey in early returns.
Short term
The result largely came down to the impact of former President Donald Trump, voter turnout and campaign cash.
The race is already the most expensive U.S. Senate contest in state history. Schiff, a Burbank U.S. representative who has consistently led in polling, has spent a whopping $38 million ahead of the primary, outspending all his opponents combined and ranking second among all Senate candidates nationwide.
Schiff’s tremendous fundraising edge made the race essentially a competition for second place for other candidates.
In recent months, that has been a fight between progressive Democratic firebrand Porter and Garvey, a former L.A. Dodgers star who jumped into the race in October and appears to be consolidating Republican voters. Lee, an Oakland Democrat known for her lone vote against the Afghanistan War in Congress and for her call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, has lagged in fundraising and polling.
But a projected “historically low” turnout, especially among young voters, boosted Garvey’s chances and hurt Porter’s odds, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last week. A third of likely voters in the primary are Republican, the poll said.
As of Tuesday, more than 2.2 million voters older than 65 had cast their ballots, versus about 347,000 voters aged 18 to 34, according to Political Data, Inc., which tracks early ballot return data.
No Republican has won a statewide race since 2006. And for months, the Senate race was almost strictly a Democratic affair.
A note on the results
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Keep in mind that in tight races particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after Election Day. In Los Angeles County, the first batch of results released includes vote-by-mail ballots received before March 5, followed by early votes cast in-person at vote centers, then votes cast in-person on Election Day.
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The results you see are the votes counted through March 29, when they were certified.
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As of March 29, here's where the vote count stands:
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Total count to date:
- 1,641,715 (28.9% of registered voters)
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Estimate still to be counted: 0
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Note: In California, ballots postmarked on or before March 5 are counted toward the results as long as they arrive within seven days of the election (March 12). Results must be certified by county election officials by April 4.
About the top candidates
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California proposition
Rep. Katie Porter: In 2018, Porter flipped a Republican congressional seat (the 47th district) in Orange County and won attention for using a white board during congressional hearings to confront witnesses. But she has also faced controversy for her stock investments in companies scrutinized by consumer advocates, her corporation consulting stint and allegations of abuse from a former staffer, which she denied.
Steve Garvey: Garvey, a baseball star turned politician, has started a marketing firm, hosted radio shows and has helped fundraise for GOP candidates, including Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan. Garvey, who flirted with a U.S. Senate run as early as 1981, is a two-time supporter of Donald Trump, and has refused to express an opinion on the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Rep. Barbara Lee: Lee, who now represents the 12th district, volunteered with the Black Panther Party and became active in politics, serving in the state legislature for seven years until she won a special election in 1998 to replace her mentor, then-U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums. In Congress, she is best known for being the lone vote against using military force in Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and voting often to withdraw troops from foreign countries.
Eric Early: Early, a Republican attorney who lives in Los Angeles, served as a legal counsel for the unsuccessful recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. He ran unsuccessfully, himself, against U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff in 2020 and for state Attorney General in both 2018 and 2022. Early is a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff: Schiff, who now represents the 30th district, ventured into California politics in 1996 as the youngest state senator at the time, and voters sent him to Congress in 2000. Starting as a member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, he's rebranded himself as a progressive in recent years, but he hasn’t been immune from controversy: For years, Schiff has claimed primary residence for both his home in Potomac, Md., and a condo in Burbank, CNN reported.
Follow the money
Tracking your ballot
You can track the status of your ballot:
If your mail-in ballot is rejected for any reason (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it. In Los Angeles County, the registrar will send you a notification by mail and you have until 5 p.m. on March 27 to reply and "cure" your ballot.
How we're covering this election
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Early voters and mail-in ballots have fundamentally reshaped how votes are counted and when election results are known.
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Our priority will be sharing outcomes and election calls only when they have been thoroughly checked and vetted. To that end, we will report when candidates concede and otherwise rely on NPR and The Associated Press for race calls. We will not report the calls or projections of other news outlets. You can find more on NPR and The AP's process for counting votes and calling races here, here and here.
