LOS ANGELES – Rep. Katie Porter’s Senate debate strategy on Tuesday was clear from her first answer: Goad fellow Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff into a fight.

By the hour-long debate’s end, she got her wish.

The final on-stage meeting between California’s top four candidates for U.S. Senate featured the most protracted clash yet between Porter and Schiff, the consistent polling frontrunner in the race for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein's seat.

With two weeks to go before the March 5 primary, Porter acted like the candidate facing the highest stakes – the prospect of being boxed out of the November general election by Steve Garvey, the Republican ex-baseball phenom who has benefited handsomely from a flood of Schiff-financed ads elevating his profile among GOP voters.

Throughout the evening, Porter lobbed spitballs at Garvey, and even foes not on stage, including another middling GOP candidate and the financiers of a “dark shady super PAC” running ads against her. But one clear focal point for the Orange County congressmember stood apart.

Porter picks her target

Forget Porter’s quippy pile-ons against Garvey from the first Senate debate. In this forum, hosted by NBC4 and Telemundo 52, she maintained a relentless focus on her fellow Democrat, taking every opportunity she could to tie him to corporate interests and the old ways of Washington.

She hammered him for not signing on to bills to address childcare costs or provide rental assistance, despite proposing such policies during his Senate run — the difference, she said, “between Congressman Schiff and candidate Schiff.” She dinged him for requesting earmarks for for-profit companies, a reference to a POLITICO report on........

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