There were few surprises at the third and potentially final pre-primary meeting of the four major candidates for California’s open U.S. Senate seat, a race increasingly defined by the race for No. 2 behind front-runner Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Is. ,

The NBC4/KNBC and Telemundo 52/KVEA event at Universal Studios was perhaps the most muted of the three debates, with few fireworks and candidates often returning to their points.

Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) focused her attacks on her colleague in the House, Schiff, including a feud over the value of the earmark.

“For many decades, Washington has made predetermined deals for certain defense contractors,” Porter said. “And there’s a candidate on this platform who has done this repeatedly, receiving funds for his personal corporate donors, who are large defense contractors.”

Schiff responded, “We have a deep disagreement over whether senators should return resources to their state. I believe they should do this. Senator Porter does not believe they should do so. She likes political talking points.

A poll released Tuesday showed Schiff ahead, but Republican Steve Garvey is moving into second place. Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics/The Hill Survey Schiff was shown with 28%, Garvey with 22%, Porter with 16%, and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) with 9%.

The top two finishers in the primaries will run in the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

This has created some interesting dynamics, as Schiff has devoted advertising resources to highlighting Garvey’s position, a move that Porter called “cynical”. His point is that Schiff is trying to increase the visibility of a less-funded Republican opponent in hopes of having an easier time facing him in the November election rather than a fellow Democrat. Meanwhile, Porter, Competed with digital ads Putting the spotlight on Eric Early, another Republican in the race. However, he was not initially invited for the debate.

Another highlight of Tuesday evening’s debate was the issue of immigration and the border. All four candidates at the forum said they would have opposed the bipartisan border deal struck in the Senate earlier this month, but they failed to get it through the House.

“Immigration reform must include comprehensive immigration reform,” Lee said. “It should be humane. There should be provisions to organize it and there should be proper procedure, but there is no proper procedure in it.”

“There was a lot of stuff crammed in there, a lot of stuff hidden away,” Garvey said. I would have voted against it.”

Reference to AI came up during the debate, including its effects on the entertainment workforce. All candidates called for deregulation, even if top tech companies would be among their constituents.

“We’re going to make sure we have strong regulation of AI to protect the public’s well-being,” Schiff said. “We can’t afford to make the same mistakes that we made with social media, when essentially we gave them free rein to do what they did with this great experiment in which we were all subjects.”

“Look what’s happening to our youth without guardrails,” Lee said. He said AI will help with the climate crisis, education and health care, but “we have to be careful that it’s not used to discriminate against people because there are some real issues around racial justice that we have to address.” “

Garvey said AI is “here to stay.” He has railed against excessive regulation, but when it comes to AI, he said, “I worry that it’s starting to eliminate white collar and blue collar jobs… I believe That it will eventually have to be regulated, because once it starts affecting you and I, and once it starts affecting Californians, that’s when we have to regulate.”

Referring to his role as a consumer advocate, Porter said that the interests “that are supporting AI are the same handful of ultra-wealthy billionaires that are supporting the ads spreading false truths about me. ” The criteria should be security, privacy and competition. These are the things we should be thinking about, and what we’ve got right now is none of those things.”