Hot Race To Replace Adam Schiff - Only One Of 15 Is Worthy

By Howie Klein — February 9, 2024

Let me talk about my own congressional district in northeast Los Angeles for a moment. In 2000, I helped Adam Schiff, our state Senator then, beat far right Republican James Rogan in what was, at the time, the most expensive congressional race in history. Obviously, a big upgrade over Rogan, Schiff disappointed me by joining the Blue Dogs, cozying up with the Military Industrial Complex and, in general, settling into a corporate Democrat trajectory— at least for a while, Over the last several years, Schiff has pivoted. He quit the Blue Dogs and his policy positions have slid further and further left.

A year or so ago, after hearing him speak on the radio, I suggested he join the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Although the CPC normally takes in any shitty New Dem, they turned down his application based on internal politics. His own positions, however, have been progressive-lite. He has more strengths than most members of Congress and I think he’s going to be an excellent U.S. Senator.

That said, I would like to see my district send a full-fledged, kick ass progressive to the House, to represent a district that has an eye-popping partisan lean of D+45. Trump only got 26% of the vote here.

If we can’t elect progressives who will push the boundaries in a district like CA-30, where can we elect them? There’s one candidate who stands out from the pack of careerist politicians: Maebe A. Girl, and Blue America has already endorsed her.

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This week, we started running ads on social media for her campaign. Please take a look up top. We’re reaching 8,500 registered voters in the district per day. We’d like to reach more and we’d like to keep running the ads right up to the March 5th primary.

I prefer to ask people to contribute to candidates— and you can contribute directly to Maebe’s Get Out the Vote operation here—

but this time I also want to ask you to consider chipping in to the Blue America Independent Expenditure Committee so we can keep funding the ads. $50 gets us a full day on Facebook or Instagram.

Although Maebe made it past half a dozen candidates in 2022 and into the Nov. run-off against Schiff— where she won 60,968 votes, more than enough to win the primary this year— the LA Times treats her like she’s some kind of novelty candidate instead of a front-runner amount a pack of garden-variety corporate Dems.

When I look at their coverage of the race, I get the feeling they’re all in on the establishment and more than a little condescending— if not transphobic.

Keep in mind that in California, David Valadao was reelected in 2022 with just 52,994 votes, Jimmy Gomez in the district next door to ours was reelected with 62,244 votes, John Duarte was elected with 67,060 votes, Jim Costa with 68,074, Tony Cárdenas 69,915.

A few days ago, Maebe sent a note to the voters in our district laying out her path to victory:

First of all, I’m the most progressive Democrat in a very blue district. Democrats won 78% of the primary votes in 2022, and no Republicans advanced to the general. Who did? Me. A progressive Democrat is very, very viable.

Second, we’re not raising as much money as some of our more conservative opponents. That’s okay! We have just as many supporters, if not more— they’re just normal people, contributing what they can. That’s a bigger show of strength, in my opinion.

Last but not least, this race has a whopping 15 (!) candidates. And that’s just those who have officially declared! More are likely to enter. With a field split that many ways, and many of those candidates raising big sums of money, what will ultimately matter is your base of support. And mine is strong— I’ve received more votes every time I’ve run, and had 60,000 people in the district vote for me in last year’s general election.

She added that when she “texted voters last cycle, many responded saying they liked my platform but had to vote for Schiff because of his experience. Understood! We expect to win many of these voters in 2024.”