I told you we would be back with news from
California,
and here is news from California.
This is a big deal.
This is the United States Senate primary in California.
I'm not describing which party's primary this is.
It's because, and that's because the parties aren't.
Primaries aren't done by party in California anymore.
No matter what party you are in,
if you place as one of the top 2 candidates
in the same primary in which everybody runs,
the top two candidates will advance to the general election
in November.
Right now, Decision Desk tells us that NBC News can
project
that one of the two candidates that will advance to
the general election in November will be Adam Schiff,
current California Congressman,
former chair of the Intelligence Committee,
major major player in in Trump impeachments and investigations.
Adam Schiff will be in the general election.
The question is who will be there with him,
by which I mean against him.
Congressman Schiff has spent campaign funds and energy and attention
trying effectively to elevate Republican Steve Garvey,
calculating that there's no chance any Republican can win in
a statewide election in California.
He'd rather run against a Republican who he's gotten much
stronger differences with than run against fellow Democrats like well
known Democratic members of Congress Katie Porter and Barbara Lee,
who are also in the race.
Now the question is between Garvey,
Porter and Lee, which one of them is going to
be joining
Congressman Schiff this fall In the general,
Steve, we're absorbing that call that's that's interesting and important
in the California Senate primary.
Can you tell us anything about how we learned that
or what else we should be watching for in terms
of who's going to get that number two slot?
Yeah, I mean, like I said,
it comes in pretty fast and furious this hour in
California.
And what's clear is first of all,
I mean just look the margin here for shift of
17% of the statewide vote is now counted in California
and look at that margin for shift.
It's almost 80,000 votes ahead of Steve Garvey.
But also look at the distance between Schiff and Katie
Porter,
for that matter, Steve Garvey and Katie Porter,
She's sitting there in 3rd place,
but at
189,000 votes, that's about
250,000 votes that Porter now lags behind Adam Schiff.
And you go further down,
there's Barbara Lee at 78,000.
You know, she's about 350,000 votes behind Adam Schiff.
It's right now the geographical breadth of that strong shift
performance because California is such a big state,
some very distinct regions. But I mean just start here
in Southern California.
We showed you Orange County to start the night.
This is where Katie you know we're not sure if
this is Katie Porter's how much of Katie Porter's district
is here?
But her district is based in part in Orange County
and their shift leading her there even in what should
be Katie Porter's really best part of the state
and we're waiting on Los Angeles County.
As you just heard from that that report from Gotti.
You get into shift country there potentially.
But let's see that's going to be a huge chunk
of vote that comes out.
But then just start working your way up the coast
here.
San Luis Obispo County more than half the vote shift
leads there.
Garvey second, look how far back it is to Katie
Porter.
Go into the Central Valley here.
It's a more Republican friendly area,
but just start working your way through.
You'll see Garvey leading. You'll see shift in second distance
to Katie Porter.
Let's go to Fresno County.
Garvey leading shift in 2nd,
20 points back to Katie Porter just working all the
way through the Central Valley here.
And that pattern remains. Now let's work our way into
the Bay Area here.
You start, there's Contra Costa County.
36% of the vote is in shift running in first.
They're very Democratic area. But Garvey Corral what Republican vote
there is far back to Katie Porter.
So you know a Southern
california-based congressman, Adam Schiff, now we're up into the Bay
Area.
There is a Bay Area congresswoman in this race,
Barbara Lee. She's lagging far behind here.
Look, Solano County 40% shift,
12% Porter. There's Barbara Lee at 10%.
You know we're waiting here very small.
We don't have anything from San Francisco County yet that
will be big in this area.
We don't have anything from San Mateo County here.
But he can zoom in,
look just across from San Francisco,
Marin County, very upscale area here shift big advantage far,
far back to Katie Porter though again,
so you just see this everywhere you're looking at even
when you go into the the Sierra Nevadas here,
you know take a look at Placer County.
We show you get a more Republican friendly area here.
But look at the distance between Shift and Katie Porter
El Dorado County. I mean same story everywhere here and
even get up to the very Republican areas in the
far,
far north of the state here.
And again, you expect Garvey to do very well here,
but even there shift, it's distant,
but shift 2nd and you just don't see the other
two Democratic members of Congress.
So again now 1/4 of the vote is in statewide.
This lead that shift
interrupt you, Steve. Sorry. NBC News has now made a
projection as to who the second candidate will be in
the November general election
against Adam Schiff. And it will be Republican Steve Garvey.
The baseball player, who hasn't run much of A campaign
at all,
was elevated within the Republican field,
such as it is by Adam Schiff,
effectively singling him out as the candidate that he most
wanted to run against in the November election.
NBC now projects that the two top finishing candidates in
the nonpartisan U.S.
Senate primary in California will indeed be Adam Schiff
and Steve Garvey. Just a remarkable
result there. Steve, I I don't want to let you
go
too far away from what you were just doing.
And I have a special request,
if you don't mind, in the Bay Area,
just east of the San Francisco Bay,
Alameda County, that's the county where Barbara Lee is would
consider to be her home base.
And I'm just wondering. Yeah,
I was wondering if she was coming in second there
to Adam Schiff. She's a Alameda County Congresswoman and beloved
at home. Again. Part of the tragedy here for Democrats
is to have
powerhouse, well known, veteran, effective members of Congress like Barbara
Lee and Katie Porter.
Now not only not going to be on the ballot
in the general election for this Senate seat,
but out of the House of Representatives having to give
up their House seats in order to to make this
run that turned out to not be successful.
You know, in these this is somewhat true in New
York as well.
You get these real traffic jams
in, in the sort of
progression of of Democratic careers because you've got states where
the
when you get elected statewide office,
you stick around a while in the state,
like in New York, California,
and there's not a lot of opportunities for opening.
So people really jump at it when they when they
happen.
If the description that we've been giving tonight about what
Adam Schiff did here picking sort of who
who he considers, I think to be an unelectable Republican
candidate to elevate during the primary to try to get
that Republican into the general election.
If that strategy sounds familiar to you,
it's because you know the former Democratic senator from Missouri,
Claire McCaskill, who famously pulled off that caper in one
of our own successful bids for the United States Senate.
She joins us now along with Obama White House Communications
Director
Jen Palmieri. Both of these women are Co hosts of
the MSNBC podcast How to Win
2024, and they both know how.
Claire, I have to go to you first.
You have been invoked. I imagine that you are,
you are cognizant here of the scheme that is at
work that appears to be paying off tonight in California
for Congressman Adam Schiff.
Yeah, I mean, what Adam Schiff did was just plain
smart.
There's nothing evil about it.
He knew that Garvey was the preferred opponent.
For one thing, it's no fun to attack Democrats,
A little bit different than my situation.
In fact, it's relatively risk free for the values.
I think that all three of the Democratic candidates in
this race shared
because I think now we can safely call him just
about almost Senator Adam Schiff.
And that's a good thing for California and it's a
good thing for America.
It's the sad thing as you guys have mentioned is
we had three good candidates here.
3 great members of Congress.
And that's always tough. Yeah.
And I I want to know what the future is
for Katie Porter and for Barbara Lee because I want
I.
They're both such good communicators,
in particular about democratic values.
Two totally different types of candidates and campaigners and politicians
and legislators and lawmakers and leaders.
Very different in their personality and presentation.
But both I would say remarkably effective communicators,
especially on on core values issues.
And so I hope that Katie Porter and Barbara Lee
are around democratic politics for a long time.
Jen, let me, let me go to you in terms
of both this California Senate result,
which we're just getting right now,
but also what you've been watching over the course of
the night.
I mean that is a very big win by Adam
Schiff.
That's a big number. It happened.
It happened quickly. I mean it's an interest.
It's interesting thing. This will be the first time in
over 30 years that a white man will represent California
United States Senate,
right. We had Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer in for
a long time,
Kamala Harris, Kevin DeLeon now.
So that's a big deal.
And then over just overall,
and I look at the exit polls and particularly it
was in California,
Virginia, North Carolina, around
3536% of Republicans people voted in the Republican primary saying
they're not willing to
to guarantee that they will support the Republican nominee.
You know, that tells me
Trump still has a problem consolidating his support.
And it's interesting because, you know,
the if, let's, let's assume the New York Times poll
from the other day was correct.
Ed said that Trump was getting
93% of the vote that he had in 2020,
yet still people voting, you know,
somewhere between 20 and 40%
of people voting in the Republican primary are not voting
for him.
So who are those people?
You know, maybe they're independents,
but they're people that are open to voting for Joe
Biden.
So I feel I'm coming out of this sort of
primary season feeling more optimistic about
Biden's room to grow and Trump hitting some kind of
ceiling.
Jen, I have to. I have to give you the
opportunity,
say California Senator Alex Padilla,
because Kevin de Leon ran for it but didn't get
it.
Thank you. Thank you so much,
Senator Alex Padilla? Yes. I knew you would want to
say that.
And I wanted to give you a chance before we
got too far down the road.
That's so nice of you.