Rep. Eric Swalwell appears at the California Democratic Party Convention in San Francisco in February. On Sunday, he ended his campaign for governor after he was accused of sexual assault.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
The brief, perplexing gubernatorial campaign of Rep. Eric Swalwell ended in a Me Too Movement fireball this past weekend. By Monday afternoon, he said he would resign from Congress, his political career reduced to ashes.
The Chronicle’s Alexei Koseff and Sophia Bollag broke the initial story on Friday that a former staffer accused him of sexual assault. CNN followed up with more accusations of sexual impropriety made by other women against Swalwell, who is a married father. Like so many powerful men, Swalwell’s initial reaction was outright denial. The stories told by the women were “lies” and “false.”
“For nearly 20 years, I have served the public — as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women,” he asserted in an initial statement that failed to convince anyone that his campaign for governor could survive the revelations.
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By Sunday night, virtually every politician or union that had endorsed Swalwell had bailed, and he finally got the message that the jig was up. He announced in a statement that he was suspending his campaign and that he was “deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in the past,” as if he was apologizing for crank phone calls made when he was a teenager rather than responding to the allegation that he raped a former staffer in 2024.
The representative from Dublin, deep into his seventh term, added that he would “fight the serious, false allegations that have been made — but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s.”
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Speaking of Swalwell’s fight, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is investigating the staffer’s story since one of the alleged incidents took place in a New York hotel room. And the allegations made by multiple women may end up leading to his expulsion from Congress. So, yeah, one battle after another seems to be on offer for the man who has so relished attacking President Donald Trump’s character.
Swalwell’s improbable rise to the top of the polls in the California governor’s race was more than accidental — it was an inside straight and a bank shot all at once. Former Vice President Kamala Harris was the presumptive, field-clearing Democratic nominee until she decided not to run in July. The Democratic power structure, led by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco machine, then focused on attempting to get Sen. Alex Padilla into the race. But like Harris, Padilla ultimately passed.
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With eight Democrats looking to fill the vacuum, a video of presumptive front-runner Katie Porter berating a staffer made the rounds, followed by a testy exchange with a television reporter, and suddenly, the former rep from Orange County no longer felt like a lock.
Porter’s support dipped in the polls, leaving billionaire activist Tom Steyer in a good position, which then led to Swalwell and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan jumping into the race because, hey, the more the merrier.
The result was a virtual five-way tie in a jungle primary, creating the real possibility that two Republicans — former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — could crack the top two in the primary, shutting out a Democratic opponent in this bluest of blue states.
With those fears growing among Democrats, Swalwell became the consensus pick for those in the party put off by the more populist candidacies of Steyer and Porter.
Swalwell got the endorsements of Sen. Adam Schiff and 24 House Democrats, along with the Service Employees International Union and the California Teachers Association, leaving him in an excellent position to break through and become the only Democrat on the November ballot.
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In other words, it looked like the race was Swalwell’s to lose — and boy did he lose it!
The truth, however, is that the political chattersphere had for weeks been rife with rumors that Swalwell had a sexual harassment problem. And while such stories are nothing new, especially during political campaigns, one must ask why Pelosi, Schiff and the rest of the Democratic herd seemed to miss them.
Frankly, party insiders have long grumbled that Swalwell was always a show pony and not a plow horse, the kind of guy more interested in highlighting his abs and stubble on Instagram than introducing a policy proposal to fix what ails California. He was a Rachel Maddow pet rock and made almost daily MS NOW appearances.
Swalwell announced his gubernatorial candidacy on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” similar to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2003 rollout on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
After a nanosecond on the Dublin City Council, Swalwell defeated unpopular Rep. Pete Stark in the 2012 primary. After only seven years in Congress, Swalwell’s presumptuous 2020 presidential campaign left no real lasting impression.
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In the governor’s race, Swalwell was also reluctant to engage with the non-MS Now press. More than one California columnist and reporter contacted Swalwell’s press operation, only to be met with crickets.
One campaign staffer for an opposing candidate believed the Swalwell staff was secretly relieved when the USC debate in Los Angeles was canceled because it might have revealed how unprepared Swalwell was.
Of Swalwell’s rivals, it was Steyer who went after him the hardest, dropping considerable cash on negative ads questioning Swalwell’s work ethic and questioning his residency and eligibility to run. Swalwell fired back in ads implying that Steyer was bought and paid for by Trump billionaires.
Of the remaining seven Democrats in the race, Steyer seems like the top-tier candidate who could benefit the most. Porter could also capitalize on Swalwell’s exit, and Mahan could pick up a vote or two.
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Guest opinions in Open Forum and Insight are produced by writers with expertise, personal experience or original insights on a subject of interest to our readers. Their views do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Chronicle editorial board, which is committed to providing a diversity of ideas to our readership.
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But don’t count on a flood of take-two endorsements for a couple of weeks at least. Swalwell’s surreptitious behavior, combined with the blindness of the California Democratic power structure, may not cost them the governorship, but it has to be a reset moment for them.
Sure, Democrats talk a great game about women and minorities, but finally decided on a 45-year-old white male with a secret they discovered far too late. That’s a systemic failure they need to address.
Jack Ohman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist who also writes at https://substack.com/@jackohman.