On Friday night, Steve Garvey, the former Major League Baseball star and current Republican candidate for Senate in California, was at Dodgers Stadium cheering on the home team as it faced off against the New York Yankees in this first game of the World Series.
His Democratic opponent, Representative Adam Schiff, the lead investigator in Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment, caught the tail end of the game — and the history-making walk-off grand slam that put the Dodgers over the top — from a bar in the Phoenix airport.
He had spent the day campaigning in Arizona for Vice President Kamala Harris and Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic nominee for the Senate, and was waiting for a flight to Las Vegas. On Saturday morning, he was still gleeful about the win.
“I’m a Dodger fan and I hate the Yankees. Last night was a grand slam in every sense of the word,” Mr. Schiff said, firing up volunteers at the Nevada State A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters before they headed out to knock on doors. “And I’m here to make sure that we have a grand slam in Nevada.”
In a state as deeply blue as California, Mr. Schiff has built up a sizable lead against Mr. Garvey, a first-time candidate who hoped nostalgia for his days as a Dodgers first baseman and frustrations with the economy, homelessness and immigration would translate to support. That has not materialized, allowing Mr. Schiff to leverage his fame as a chief Trump antagonist — and a considerable campaign war chest — on behalf of a number of potential Senate colleagues far from where he’s actually on the ballot.
Along with making stops for Senator Jacky Rosen in Nevada and attending events in Arizona with Mr. Gallego, Mr. Schiff has traveled to New Mexico for Senator Martin Heinrich, to Pennsylvania for Senator Bob Casey and to Ohio for Senator Sherrod Brown.
On Monday, he’ll campaign in Minnesota with Senator Amy Klobuchar, and travel to Wisconsin for events with Senator Tammy Baldwin later this week. He has also appeared in numerous competitive House districts in California and beyond. Though Mr. Heinrich’s and Ms. Klobuchar’s election chances are almost certainly safe, the other candidates are fighting for their political lives in close contests, many of which are playing out in the presidential battlegrounds where polls continue to show that the race between Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump is in a dead heat.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Schiff said that he had helped raise about $9.5 million for Democratic candidates, including directly contributing $1 million from his Senate campaign to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The trips also courted a constituency important to Mr. Schiff: labor. Several of his stops Saturday were with unions, including the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, which have been steadfast financial supporters of his political career in California.
At the A.F.L.-C.I.O. event, which was packed with volunteers from Mr. Schiff’s home state bused in for the weekend to bolster canvassing efforts, Patrick Gerrity, 51, said he appreciated Mr. Schiff’s support for legislation such as the PRO Act, which would increase protections for union members. He also liked how Mr. Schiff framed the race as a stark choice between more freedoms, or fewer under Mr. Trump.
Mr. Gerrity, a Las Vegas resident, had researched the labor provisions of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint that Mr. Trump has repeatedly disavowed despite its ties to him and his campaign, and worried how, as a health care technician for the Department of Veterans Affairs and union member, it would affect him.
“His comments about the World Series I could do without,” Mr. Gerrity, who was wearing a Yankees hat, said of Mr. Schiff.
Still, he added: “I think a lot of what he said is very accurate about the state of the country. We’re at a point where if you’re not taking an action and doing something to oppose the direction of this country, then you’re complicit in all the bad stuff.”
Later, Mr. Schiff dropped by a Latino Get Out the Vote event in East Las Vegas, which included a mariachi band, tacos and a horse parade. He didn’t venture on a horseback ride, but took lots of selfies before telling attendees about the importance of electing Ms. Harris and other Democrats such as Ms. Rosen.
He also chatted with Armando Elenes, the secretary-treasurer for the United Farm Workers and a Bakersfield, Calif., resident, who came to Nevada to knock on doors with other union members. He thanked Mr. Schiff for speaking at a recent U.F.W. convention there.
“He’s a champion on behalf of working people,” Mr. Elenes said. “It’s exciting to see him doing his part as well even as he’s running for his own office.”
In an interview, Mr. Schiff rationalized these trips away from California as part of a broader effort to defeat Mr. Trump and work toward Democratic majorities in Congress, which would in turn help his constituents. Democrats must win seven of the seats they are defending this year to achieve an even partisan split in the Senate, with tiebreaking votes coming from the new vice president.
“People come in part because I’m there, and so it helps attract more volunteers, more resources,” Mr. Schiff said. “The stuff that my constituents want me to do to attack housing prices and food prices and gas prices and to restore reproductive freedom will be very hard to do if we’re not setting the agenda in the majority.”
Douglas Herman, a Democratic strategist in California, said the state’s congressional delegation had lost a considerable amount of clout with the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who served about 31 years in the Senate and whose seat Mr. Schiff is seeking.
“What he’s doing is building power and clout for California,” said Mr. Herman.
Matt Shupe, Mr. Garvey’s spokesman, said the focus should be on Mr. Schiff’s refusal to endorse a candidate in the Los Angeles district attorney race and to address where he stands on Proposition 36 — a statewide ballot measure that would increase punishments for some drug and theft offenses.
A recent public poll of the state’s likely voters found that Mr. Schiff was beating Mr. Garvey 63 percent to 37 percent. In the same poll, Mr. Schiff was actually outperforming Ms. Harris, a native Californian who represented the state in the Senate and garnered 59 percent of support among likely voters. Mr. Trump received the backing of 33 percent of the state’s likely voters.
Mr. Schiff’s polling lead has been consistent since he and Mr. Garvey emerged as the top two vote getters in the March primary. Mr. Garvey was able to consolidate Republicans behind him, while Mr. Schiff outpaced two congressional colleagues, Representatives Barbara Lee, of Oakland, and Katie Porter, of Irvine.
At the event with the carpenters’ union on Saturday, Ms. Rosen praised the man she hoped to serve with in the Senate. In particular, she said she was looking forward to hanging out with him on the new high speed train between Las Vegas and Los Angeles that union members are helping construct.
“He’s going to be a great senator, and we’re going to do amazing things,” Ms. Rosen said, “especially when we ride that Brightline train back and forth when that’s done.”
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