Is there anything he is saying to his followers that he isn’t saying on his website that looks iffy?
Unfortunately for the CA GOP (I weep for them), there are no Republicans holding posts worth holding in terms of statewide exposure. The last time a Republican held a CA statewide office, any statewide office, was 2011. Democrats also enjoy supermajorities in both CA legislative bodies.
Republicans are limited to a handful of safe state and federal legislative seats and a smaller handful of contested seats. 11 of 52 House members, 8 of 40 State Senators, 18 of 80 State Assembly seats. They have limited traction in any major urban area where the bulk of the population lives. Even the great old suburban strongholds like Orange county are battleground areas now. Basically despite there being more Trump voters in CA than Texas (just a function of population size), they are swamped out and the politically skilled bench is thin and cannot realistically win a statewide contest in the Trump era.
Really, as a general proposition charismatic “celebrity” candidates might be the GOP’s best bet at scoring a dark horse statewide win in CA. But Garvey isn’t likely to move the needle.
Meanwhile Schiff may be a cynical Machiavelli, but the CA Democratic Party is breathing a sigh of relief. Not only is a Schiff/Porter fight not hoovering up future contributions, but Schiff is a fund-raising machine with a reputation as a generous sharer with other candidates. It’s why he has a ton of internal party support. The CA DP want to keep their powder dry to take a few of those contested House seats.
They didn’t just attack Garvey. They said that since Garvey is bad for California, viewers should vote for Schiff. But getting Democrats to vote for Schiff instead of Porter (or Barbara Lee, a Democrat who came in fourth) would do nothing to get rid of Garvey. And all of those spots were free advertising for Garvey. The effect was to encourage Republicans to go to the polls to vote for Garvey, and to encourage Democrats to switch from Porter and Lee to Schiff.
The best way for the Democratic Party to ensure Garvey lost in the primary would have been to ignore him. He was polling very poorly until Schiff started to run those ads.
I’d worry about this more if I thought Garvey had any real chance of winning the general election. I expect Schiff to win easily, just as I’d expect Porter or Lee to (though I think Lee had the worst chance
of the three). I will say that if something happens between now and November to give Garvey the win, I will be really pissed off at Schiff.