CALABASAS, California — Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres first baseman Steve Garvey stayed in the political dugout after his playing days ended in 1987 despite clamor by Republicans for him to seek office. Now the 10-time MLB All-Star is finally coming up to bat politically as a 2024 GOP Senate candidate in California.
Garvey joins a crowded race in a strongly Democratic state against a slew of well-funded rivals: Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff.
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Garvey’s campaign caught a break when appointed Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) decided not to run for a full, six-year Senate term. Butler, a former labor organizer and Democratic political consultant, was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) after the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had held the seat since November 1992.
That gives Garvey a real shot of finishing in second place when the March all-party primary takes place. An early September poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found Garvey had the highest name recognition among Republicans in the Senate race: attorney and frequent candidate Eric Early and business executive and Coast Guard Auxiliary Cmdr. James Bradley.
Schiff is now seemingly trying to boost Garvey’s name ID statewide to make sure there’s a Democratic vs. Republican runoff in November 2024, which the congressman is virtually guaranteed to win. After all, from 2010 on, no Republican has won statewide in California, one of the nation’s deepest blue bastions and by far its largest, with nearly 40 million people. California in 2020 backed President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.
“I have a new Republican opponent — Steve Garvey. Before he was a multi-millionaire Republican celebrity, he was a first baseman. Based on his announcement, it sounds like he’s ready to take up the fight for everyone born on third base — thinking they hit a triple. Go figure,” Schiff posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Oct. 10.
That’s a plausible strategy with a divided Democratic field and a large raw voting pool of Republicans in the nation’s most populous state. After all, in 2020, Trump’s 6,006,429 votes, good for 34.32% statewide to Biden’s 63.48%, were still more than he earned by winning Texas relatively easily. In Texas, the nation’s second most populous state, Trump won 5,890,347 votes, part of his 52.06% to 46.48% Lone Star State victory over Biden.
Schiff, first elected to the House in 2000 and representing the Los Angeles, Burbank, and Glendale 30th Congressional District, brought in an eye-popping $6.4 million in the third quarter for his California Senate campaign. The money came from 102,700 unique donors, and he ended the quarter with $32 million in cash on hand.
He’s hoping that hefty sum will help him defeat two prominent California Democrats he’s running against: Porter, from the coastal Orange County and Irvine 47th Congressional District, and Lee, who represents the Oakland and Berkeley 12th Congressional District.
Schiff, a former federal prosecutor and state senator, rose to national prominence as the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial. He was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time. In January, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) kicked Schiff off the panel for his alleged misconduct in investigating Russia’s links with Trump and his campaign — and in making the case for Trump’s impeachment. Schiff was also a steady prosecutorial presence on the Jan. 6 committee that McCarthy and most Republicans boycotted.
Dodger Blue no more
Garvey, 74, was mentioned as a possible candidate, to varying degrees, in the 1988, 1990, and 1992 election cycles. He demurred, falling into the familiar star retired athlete routine of speechmaking and commercial endorsements. And that period was Garvey’s best shot politically in California. The center-right Golden State GOP of the late Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan still had an edge in the state’s politics. California had a Republican governor and a GOP senator, and the party held about half its House seats.
Now California is a deeper shade of blue than the Los Angeles Dodgers colors. Still, Garvey is counting on name recognition from his playing days. As one of a quartet of MLB's longest-running infields, along with third baseman Ron Cey, shortstop Bill Russell, and second baseman Davey Lopes, Garvey played for the Dodgers from 1969 to 1982 and then for the San Diego Padres from 1983 to 1987, major league teams in two of the biggest media markets in the state. Garvey won a World Series title with the Dodgers in 1981 and won four Gold Glove Awards.
During his Los Angeles days, Garvey was a familiar presence around town and a resident of Calabasas, northwest of Los Angeles on the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, with a plethora of hiking trails, along with high-end restaurants and luxury shopping. Garvey now lives in Palm Desert, part of a dry-heat area about two hours east of Los Angeles with abundant golf courses, which is a retirement haven for former professional athletes — plus political types after they leave office, such as the late President Gerald Ford and retired Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA).
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In Garvey’s playing heyday, he had a squeaky-clean reputation that later was marred by revelations that he fathered children with two women after a bitter divorce, though that hardly seems like a candidacy deal-killer a quarter of a century after news broke of then-President Bill Clinton’s affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and, more recently, a payoff court case in which Trump has been indicted, along with his well-known history of affairs that include allegations of rape and other sexual misconduct.
Garvey has said he twice voted for Trump. He opposes abortion but said he would respect Californians’ views on the matter and would not vote for federal legislation that restricted abortion rights. Beyond that, Garvey’s issue profile is taking a back seat to his celebrity, such as it is. And running in a politically hostile state, he would need the political equivalent of a grand slam home run to be competitive in the general election, should he make it that far.