Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate for governor, speaks during a California Chamber of Commerce gubernatorial panel discussion at the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in Sacramento on June 4.
PAUL KITAGAKI JR.
pkitagaki@sacbee.com
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive Democrat from Massachusetts who has built her career around taking on big corporations, is endorsing Katie Porter in the California governor’s race.
“From the moment Katie set foot in my consumer law class, I knew that she would be a warrior for working families,” Warren said in a statement, referring to their overlapping time as professor and student at Harvard Law School. “No one will stand up to Trump with more grit and determination than Katie. But just as importantly, she will champion the kind of bold, progressive vision that California workers and families deserve.”
Warren previously endorsed Porter during her unsuccessful campaign to succeed the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who died in office in 2023. Sen. Adam Schiff, who recently endorsed East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell in the governor’s race, beat Porter in the Senate primary and went on to defeat Republican candidate Steve Garvey.
Porter, who previously represented Orange County in the House, first won office during 2018’s “blue wave” after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee successfully flipped all seven Republican-held House seats.
During her six-year tenure, Porter often went viral for wielding a whiteboard to emphasize her points while dressing down corporate executives in congressional hearings.
“Senator Warren and I fought together in Congress to hold Big Banks and giant corporations that cheat the American people accountable,” Porter said Thursday in a statement. “From the classroom to the Capitol, we have made consumer protection and fighting for working families our lifework. I’ll be a governor who is unbought, undeterred and unwilling to continue the special interest status quo that has left too many Californians behind.”
Porter blamed her Senatorial race defeated on Fairshake, a PAC with ties to the crypto industry, of which she was a critic, for spending $10 million to air negative ads against her. She later walked back claims that the election was “rigged.”
With less than a month before the March 6 filing deadline, most voters report being undecided, though that number has declined as Republican candidate Steve Hilton and Swalwell lead the field among likely voters, according to an Emerson College poll published Wednesday.
According to the poll of 1,000 likely voters, Hilton had 17% percent among overall voters, followed by Swalwell and Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 14%, and Porter at 10%. Some 21% were undecided, a 10-point drop from the previous Emerson poll conducted in December.
Other powerful Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi have declined to endorse in the race so far. Newsom told The Sacramento Bee in November that he would avoid the topic, saying it was “uncomfortable when you have a sell-by date.”
Pelosi spokesperson Ian Krager dismissed reports that she was planning to endorse Swalwell.
“Speaker Pelosi has no plans to endorse a gubernatorial candidate at this time,” he wrote in an email.
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Lia Russell covers California’s governor for The Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Bureau. Originally from San Francisco, Lia previously worked for The Baltimore Sun and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.