Rep. Eric Swalwell delivers remarks during the California Democratic Party convention at Moscone Center in San Francisco on Feb. 21, 2026.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
A defiant Rep. Eric Swalwell is fighting on in his quest to become the next governor of California despite growing calls to drop out, resign and even that he be expelled from Congress after the Chronicle reported Friday that a former staffer for the Castro Valley Democrat said he sexually assaulted her twice.
The seven-term House member, who had been consolidating Democratic support in the crowded gubernatorial race, is now shedding allies and campaign staff. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced Saturday that it had launched an investigation into one of the alleged assaults. Swalwell will have to convince millions of Californians that the woman, as well as three others who came forward to CNN to accuse him of misconduct, are lying.
So far, however, he appears to believe he still has a path to victory — by casting the allegations against him as a political conspiracy to take down the front-runner for the governor’s office.
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“He intends to continue his campaign. Yes. Very much so,” Swalwell’s attorney, Elias Dabaie, told CNN in a tense interview Friday night. When asked why Swalwell was not there himself to answer questions about the claims made against him, Dabaie added, “Well, he has a campaign to run. He’s busy.”
In his first public comments following the allegations — a short direct-to-camera video posted to social media — Swalwell flatly denied the allegations of sexual assault but did not engage directly with any of the specific claims against him.
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The woman the Chronicle interviewed said Swalwell pursued her with explicit messages and photos on Snapchat soon after she joined his district office at age 21, then pressured her for sex. She said Swalwell twice had sex with her when she was too drunk to consent, once when he was her boss and again five years later after a charity gala in New York City they both attended, when she tried to push him off and told him to stop.
Swalwell instead implied he had been unfaithful in his marriage, a personal matter that his supporters should be willing to overlook. That was a pivot from earlier in the week, when he denied to reporters that he had ever behaved inappropriately toward or slept with female staffers.
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“I do not suggest to you in any way that I am perfect or that I’m a saint,” Swalwell said in the social media video. “I’ve certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past. But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.”
“I also apologize to you if, in any way, you have doubted your support for me,” he added. “But I think you know who I am.”
If he indeed pushes forward with his campaign, Swalwell will increasingly have to go at it alone.
The California Federation of Labor Unions and SEIU California, one of the most powerful unions in the state, announced Saturday morning that they were withdrawing their endorsements of Swalwell, joining a growing chorus of the congressman’s former allies who have revoked their support.
The vast majority of the roughly two dozen members of Congress who had endorsed him dropped their support Friday, including his campaign co-chairs and both U.S. senators who had backed his campaign. Politico reported Friday that top staffers on his campaign began departing shortly before the Chronicle published its story.
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It’s not unusual for a politician to vow to fight in the immediate aftermath of a scandal breaking, said UC Berkeley political science professor Eric Schickler, but it’s hard to imagine Swalwell recovering given the rapid pace he’s losing support from key allies.
“It seems extremely unlikely that he could still win,” Schickler said.
With the ballot already set, Swalwell’s name will appear even if he eventually drops out. But because the allegations surfaced during the primary, when there are still other viable Democratic candidates for voters to choose from, it will be especially hard for Swalwell to convince supporters to overlook the accusations.
Swalwell appeared best positioned of the Democratic candidates just before the scandal broke, Schickler said, though not by a wide margin.
A poll of the race conducted last month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, where Schickler serves as co-director, found Swalwell tied with fellow Democrat former Rep. Katie Porter at 13%. That put them behind the leading Republicans, former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who had 17% and 16% respectively. Close behind those top four candidates was billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democrat, at 10%. Five other major Democratic candidates are also in the race.
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Democratic voters today have far less tolerance for politicians accused of sexual misconduct than in the ’90s, when then-President Bill Clinton weathered the backlash from his affair with a White House intern. The dynamic changed especially rapidly in the wake of the flood of sexual misconduct allegations and later convictions against powerful men at the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017 and 2018.
“We see a very different immediate reaction,” Schickler said of the Swalwell allegations. “I think the politics of these scandals has changed a lot in the wake of the #MeToo movement.”
Swalwell appears to believe he can turn back the clock to an earlier era when it was enough for politicians to deny, deny, deny, and then attack their accusers — perhaps taking inspiration from his staunch enemy, President Donald Trump, who won the presidency despite multiple alleged affairs and being found liable in court for sexually abusing a woman.
On CNN, attorney Dabaie declined to clarify Swalwell’s position and repeatedly batted down questions about his accusers’ credibility, his use of Snapchat and whether he was prepared to testify under oath.
“I’m not going to get into the details of that,” Dabaie said. “Our investigation is ongoing. A lot of it is privileged.”
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He reiterated that Swalwell found the timing of the allegations suspicious, less than a month before voters begin casting ballots in the June primary, and theorized that the Democratic Party was mobilizing to force candidates out of a packed field to ensure a Democrat would advance in the top two in June.
He also suggested that the woman who said Swalwell sexually assaulted her was trying to cover up her own behavior, despite contemporaneous text messages where she told a friend about the alleged attack days later.
“I’d prefer not to get into those details at this time,” Dabaie said. “But I can say that those text messages were sent by someone who was in a relationship at the time and may have had her own motives.”
Swalwell faces other brewing challenges, including the prospect of criminal charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney.
“We urge survivors and anyone with knowledge of these allegations to contact our Special Victims Division at 212-335-9373,” a spokesperson for the office said in an unsigned statement. “Our specially trained prosecutors, investigators, and counselors are well-equipped to help you in a trauma-informed, survivor-centered manner.”
Swalwell may also lose his current job. Democratic House leaders issued a joint statement late Friday urging a “swift investigation into these incidents.” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said Saturday morning that she would introduce a resolution this week to expel Swalwell from Congress.
Luna is a conspiracy theorist on the fringe right of the House, but her proposed resolution poses a real threat to Swalwell. Reporting by the San Antonio Express-News recently revealed that Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, had an affair with a congressional staffer and pressured a campaign aide for nude photos and sex. Luna said to Fox News on Saturday that colleagues may be prepared to combine expulsion votes for Swalwell and Gonzales, obviating any partisan concerns about the balance of power in a narrowly divided House.
“I’m tired of this. I’m not going to serve with these sexual deviants. That’s not what Congress is all about,” Luna told Fox News. “We need to focus on the business of the American people, and it doesn’t include this stuff, so let’s get rid of them.”
It remains to be seen whether Swalwell will ever actually return to the campaign trail. Asked Friday about Swalwell’s plans, attorney Dabaie was noncommittal.
“That’s not clear,” he said. “He’s taking time with his family right now and that’s a decision for him to make.”