Steve Garvey now tied with Adam Schiff in US Senate race

Latest poll shows Garvey with slight lead

In the race for US Senate, Steve Garvey and Adam Schiff are nearly tied, but Garvey has a slight lead over the democrat.

LOS ANGELES - With four days left till California's Primary Election, a new poll shows former LA Dodger Steve Garvey in a statistical tie with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff in the race for US Senate.

The latest Berkeley IGS Poll, finds Garvey the choice of 27% of likely voters, while Schiff received the backing of 25%.

Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter was in third at 19%, and Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee trailed with just 8%.

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Another 12% of voters are supporting other candidates, and 9% are still undecided. These numbers reflect the full-term election which a candidate will serve out till January 3, 2031.

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Twenty-seven candidates are in the race to fill the seat once held by the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In the partial term election, a candidate will fill out the remaining few months of Feinstein’s unexpired term. In that race, Garvey is in the lead with 29% of the vote, Schiff and Porter trail with 23% and 20% and Lee with 10%.

According to Berkeley IGS, the large increase in support for Garvey occurred mainly by consolidating the support of Republican and strong conservative voters, 67% of whom now back Garvey in the full-term U.S. Senate race.

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Experts say Garvey’s support in the partial-term race is because the names of only two Republicans appear on that ballot as compared to 10 Republican candidates on the full-term Senate ballot.

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Previous polls had Schiff in the lead with Garvery trailing behind in third.

Schiff's campaign released ads boosting Garvey and saying that both men were the "leading candidates." Experts said the ad strategy was that if Garvey was to advance in the primary, Schiff would have an easier time beating the Republican in November.

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"The results suggest that Schiff’s strategy of boosting Garvey’s candidacy to allow an easier race in the November run-off election appears to have worked, perhaps even better than Schiff’s campaign had envisioned. Reversing the recent trend will depend on last-minute changes in turnout dynamics, which currently greatly benefit Garvey," said IGS Co-Director Eric Schickler.

In California’s last two Senate races, GOP candidates performed so poorly that only Democrats appeared on the November ballot. The last Republican to win a Senate race in the state was in 1988.

California voters will determine the top two candidates in the state's primary on March 5. The top two, regardless of party, will advance to the general election, which voters will decide on Nov. 5.