Former Major League Baseball star Steve Garvey announced on Tuesday that he is running for the U.S. Senate in the 2024 California race as a Republican, saying that his campaign would focus on “quality of life” issues and returning California to being the “heartbeat” of America.
Garvey, 74, had a lengthy MLB career spanning from 1969-1987 where he played first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. The former baseball player, who won the National League MVP award in 1974, told The Daily Wire that he decided to run after seeing the “dysfunction” of Washington, D.C.
“I talk about a chorus of career politicians from the state of California that have told people what’s good for them, that your life is great, and it’s just not true,” Garvey said in an interview. “They know that their life could be better. They know they’ve seen better days in California, that’s why they are still here; they love California. But they need help.”
Garvey, whose first campaign ad highlighted his baseball career, indicated that he would use the relationship he built with Californians during his MLB career to earn support.
“I’ve had this 50-year love affair with California, starting with when I first put on a Dodger uniform back on September 1, 1969,” he said. “The fans knew that I played for them, I played honestly, and gave my 100 percent.”
Key issues he said he would focus on included addressing economic challenges like the rising price of food and gasoline, affordable housing, supporting law enforcement, and education. He also said that the border should be secured and that the government needed to “shut down the sources of illicit drugs that are killing Americans.”
As senator, he said that he would focus on making “common sense decisions for the people of California.” In previous interviews, he said that he would uphold the state’s stance on abortion and would not support a nationwide abortion ban.
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As a Republican, Garvey faces an uphill climb, as a Republican has not won a national Senate seat in over 30 years. Garvey previously said that he voted for former President Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
Democrats in the race for deceased California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s former seat include Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Katie Porter, and Rep. Barbara Lee. California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, a radical pro-abortion activist, to Feinstein’s seat earlier this month.
Garvey said that ordinary people had been left behind by California polices and that politicians were not making decisions beneficial to the state or the country.
“I saw such a dysfunction in Washington in career politicians really living for the business of politics and not for the people of California or this country,” Garvey told The Daily Wire.