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The surprisingly wide-open race for governor of the nation’s most populous state emerged from its slumber last week when a three-minute clip of former California Rep. Katie Porter, who has been leading Democrats in all polls, went viral on the internet. It reinforced persistent rumors and evidence that Porter comes off as combative and angry. (Incidentally, have you seen the president of the United States lately?)
In the clip, a CBS Sacramento reporter asks Porter what she’d say to the 40 percent of California voters who voted for Trump, “who you’ll need in order to win” the governorship, about backing the redistricting ballot measure intended to counter Trump’s gerrymandering scheme. (That ballot measure is almost certainly going to win, by the way.) “How would I need them in order to win, ma’am?” Porter replied, questioning the premise.
That’s pretty much correct; a Democrat is going to win the governor’s race in California next year, without needing Trump voters. It’s true that in a state with a primary system where the top two vote-getters advance regardless of party, Porter could find herself facing a fellow Democrat, with Trump voters as the swing. But every Democrat in the race is also backing the redistricting measure, and the makeup of the race, which has a half-dozen Democrats and only two prominent Republicans, makes it overwhelmingly likely that it will be a traditional Democratic-Republican general election.
Of course, this wasn’t why the clip went viral. It’s because Porter got angry about follow-up questions and threatened to walk out of the interview. (“Threatened” is the operative word; she stayed and answered questions for 20 minutes after that clip.) It played into an impression that Porter was a hothead without the proper temperament to be governor.
Porter’s opponents were obviously waiting to pounce on this, because a bunch of other hit pieces flew out almost immediately. One involved Porter yelling at a staffer on a Zoom call to get out of her “fucking shot,” and another was a series of text messages to the mayor of Irvine that had already been public for years. This was followed by the obligatory “campaign in disarray” Politico piece.
There is no doubt that Porter has a bad reputation as a manager, something that has been long whispered about. We should be honest that people berating their staff really stinks. But we can also be honest about what’s going on in this gubernatorial race.
Porter is disliked by the Sacramento establishment, not because of her interpersonal skills but because she’s more populist than they’d like and more willing to challenge the corporate interests that rule California politics. Her 2024 Senate election was derailed by millions of dollars from the crypto industry. (There’s actually a crypto cutout in this race now named Ian Calderon, who wants to “make California the undisputed leader on Bitcoin.”)
When Kamala Harris passed on the race and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis dropped out, the establishment was left without a candidate. Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former state Controller Betty Yee, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and rich guy Stephen Cloobeck have done little for voters. So the establishment has been desperately trying to get Sen. Alex Padilla to jump in, seeing him as someone they “can work with.” The viral Porter video provided an opening to knock down the frontrunner and signal to Padilla that it is a race he can win.
It won’t be so simple. Porter got the EMILYs List endorsement last week, and Teamsters California and other supporters haven’t abandoned her amid this firestorm. We’ll see what the polls say, but her momentum doesn’t seem to have been reversed, and the plan by California’s establishment to dictate who controls the state isn’t quite locked in.
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