Former baseball MVP Steve Garvey joins California US Senate race, gives GOP ballot dash of celebrity
Former baseball MVP Steve Garvey is joining the race to succeed the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former baseball MVP Steve Garvey joined the race Tuesday to succeed the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, giving Republicans a splash of star quality on the ballot in a heavily Democratic state where the GOP hasn’t won a Senate race in 35 years.
Garvey, 74, launched his campaign with a video lush with baseball imagery that recalled his career as a perennial All-Star who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. It also signaled he would lean toward the political center in a party dominated by former President Donald Trump, the leading GOP presidential candidate who could share the ballot with Garvey next year.
“I never played for Democrats or Republicans or independents. I played for all of you,” Garvey said in the video, in which he also alluded to problems vexing the state from homelessness to crime. “It’s going to be a common sense campaign.”
In an interview, Garvey said he voted for Trump in the past but had not settled on a pick in the unfolding 2024 presidential contest. He did not answer directly when asked if he considered himself part of the Trump wing of the GOP. Trump lost California in landslides in 2016 and 2020, though he had support from millions of Republican and conservative-leaning voters in the state.
