Rep. Adam B. Schiff, who last week became the Democratic nominee for a vacant Senate seat in California, on Sunday dismissed claims that his primary was rigged.
Mr. Schiff said Democrats immediately rejected claims by one of his primary opponents, Rep. Katie Porter, that wealthy donors spent millions of dollars on Mr. Schiff’s behalf to “rigge” the race, defying his party and the former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
“That term ‘rigged’ is a very loaded term in the year of Trump,” Mr. Schiff said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It means fraud, election fraud and false claims like those made by Donald Trump. I think what’s remarkable is that Democrats very quickly came together and said, ‘No, we’re not using that language.'”
Ms. Porter, one of Mr. Schiff’s two progressive primary opponents for the seat, thanked her supporters on social media last week and went on to describe “an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig the primary.”
Her comments immediately sparked criticism from Democratic colleagues, including Senator Alex Padilla of California, who dismissed Ms. Porter’s suggestion as “ridiculous” in an interview with Politico.
“This is a sharp contrast to how the Republican Party handles allegations of a rigged election,” Schiff added on Sunday, referring to Republicans who have described the law enforcement following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol as political retaliation . “In fact, they are calling on President Trump to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists if he ever gets a chance.”
Ms. Porter failed to advance in the Senate primary last week after Mr. Schiff and his allies spent tens of millions of dollars airing television ads that described Steve Garvey, the Republican opponent, as “too conservative for California.” .
Mr. Schiff’s ads were widely understood as part of his campaign strategy to attract more Republican voters to the polls to exclude his Democratic rivals in California’s “jungle” primaries, where the top two finishers advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation .
The ads drew sharp criticism from Ms Porter, who described them as “outrageously cynical”.
Mr. Schiff defended his campaign strategy during Sunday’s interview, saying he had simply gone after his Republican opponent, as his Democratic colleagues had done.
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2024-03-10 19:00:43
www.nytimes.com
