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Former Democrat Rep. Katie Porter joined the 2026 contest for the California governor on Tuesday, joining the busy candidate field if former vice president Kamala Harris joins the race.
Porter, who burned the CEO and turned a social media celebrity by wielding whiteboards at Congressional hearings, promised in the campaign launch video that President Donald Trump’s administration is an active counterweight when he clashes with the White House over issues from water management to immigration rights.
“In Congress, I held the Trump administration’s feet to fire when I hurt Americans. As governor, when Trump hurts Californians, he embraced disaster relief, attacked our rights, attacked our community, ruined working families and benefited myself and his associates.
The contest to replace the term-limited Democratic government’s Gavin Newsom has already invited a massive scrum of announced and possibly candidates if Harris decides to look for a top office in the state.
Former state attorney general and US Senator Harris has not refused to seek governor since leaving Washington in January after failing to bid for the president. Porter was friendly with the former vice president and showed that if Harris were to race, she would be aside. In 2012, then California Attorney General Harris appointed Porter to the state’s independent bank monitor in a multi-billion dollar national mortgage settlement.
Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna University, said if Harris took part in the race saying “few politicians would want to take her with him.” “She’s likely to win a Democratic nomination, and Democrats are likely to win a governor.”
Porter, who started running in the Senate last year, is also known for her small dollar fundraising power, but will be one of the most famous candidates on the Democratic side, including former Los Angeles mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Colonel Eleni Kunarakis.
Democrats are expected to easily hold seats in states that are nearly 2-1 above registered Republicans. Republicans have not won a statewide election in California for nearly 20 years.
On the GOP side, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco became the first major Republican last month to announce his bid for Newsom’s replacement, which will be held in early January 2027. He denounced Democrats about the ongoing homelessness crisis and runaway housing prices.
Even if Harris races, the state’s open primary system could become unpredictable. All candidates appear in a single vote regardless of the party, with only the top two voters advancing to the November general election. Candidates line up for Trump can enter the GOP side and generate conservative interest, rattle the expected order of wealthy candidates appearing with funds.
“These open primers are difficult to handicap,” said Andrew Acosta, a Democrat consultant. “It’s getting harder to predict.”
A progressive favorite, Porter sparked an online backlash after losing the 2024 Senate race. She finished third in the primary – behind Sen from now on. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey – did not advance to the November election.
Some likened her words to Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud in 2020. Porter later revealed her first statement and didn’t think California’s vote count or the election process had compromised, but she did not repeat her previous statement. Equipped, she said in her follow-up that she was “a means operated by fraudulent means.”
She has been an active fundraiser since leaving the Southern California home district in January and has returned to education at the University of California Irvine School of Law.
Porter, a pre-election consumer protection lawyer to the home, became known in Congress for his indistinguishable interrogation of business leaders and other committee witnesses, using plains plain language to attack corporate greed, often using whiteboards to destroy complex figures.
Porter, who was first elected to Congress in 2018, said in her video, “I first ran to the office to hold Trump accountable. I feel the same call now to stop him from hurting Californians.”
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