Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter are Democratic representatives in Congress. They have similar voting records, boast their progressive bona fides and are running for California’s U.S. Senate seat.
When it comes to their voting records, Porter and Schiff agree 98% of the time so far this Congress while Schiff and Lee and Porter and Lee agree 96%, according to a ProPublica analysis of their voting records. In the 2021-22 Congress, Porter and Schiff agreed 99% while the other pairings lined up at 98%.
Certainly, even more similarities abound, including biographical — two are lawyers, two represent Southern California in the U.S. House, two are over the age of 60 and none is originally from California.
But there are stark differences, too, and with less than a year to go until the primary, how all three candidates are pitching themselves to voters, and highlighting those contrasts, is starting to emerge.
“There’s not a great deal of difference between the candidates on the issues,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political messaging at USC and UC Berkeley. “As a result, they’re going to end up spending a lot of time trying to establish themselves as a particular type of progressive leader: Barbara Lee is the social justice warrior, Katie Porter is the economic populist and Adam Schiff is the defender of democracy.”
“For many Democratic voters, the differences between them are going to have more to do with emphasis and identity than anything else,” Schnur said.
Lee, 76, has been in Congress since 1998 when she won a special election to replace a retiring member.
She was the only member of Congress to vote against invading Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. The Oakland Democrat has railed against what she considers “wasteful military spending and investing in war rather than peace” and has voted against the federal defense budgets.
In contrast, Porter, 49, has only been in Congress since 2019; she was part of the wave that…
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