Former Rep. Katie Porter said she “fell short” after videos of her interactions with a journalist and a staffer went viral, promising “to do better.”
Whether that acknowledgment, that small bit of public damage control, is enough to keep her campaign for California governor afloat, remains to be seen.
The pair of videos — one recent, one from 2021 — was certainly damaging to Porter’s campaign and largely de facto status at the front of the Democratic pack for California governor.
On the one hand, the former member of Congress had been leading in recent polls, conducted before the videos dominated headlines and social media trending lists. But those leads were far from substantial, and political experts generally refrained from calling Porter the frontrunner. That means there isn’t much room for Porter to veer off the regular course of her campaign messaging for an apology tour.
But on the other hand, it’s still relatively early in the campaign season, one that offers Porter the unique gift of another election — the special election on redistricting — to distract voters’ attention first.
“There are several months until the primary and over a year until the runoff. She has plenty of time to put this behind her; she just hasn’t yet,” said Dan Schnur, a former campaign consultant who teaches about political messaging at UC Berkeley and USC.
Still, it might not solely be up to Porter whether she can survive the damaging videos.
If rumors were rampant before about a new Democratic candidate joining the gubernatorial race — say, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, for example — the videos of Porter’s temperament and treatment of others have only amplified them.
‘This isn’t our person’
It was Porter’s exchange with CBS reporter Julie Watts that first went viral. Porter grew increasingly and visibly frustrated with questions about whether she would need support from Californians who support President Donald Trump to win the gubernatorial race. At one point, she threatened to end the interview.
And then Politico released footage from 2021 of Porter berating a staffer who interrupted a recording she was taping for the Biden administration to correct a comment about electric vehicles. Cursing, Porter admonished the staffer for appearing in the background of the shot.
A spokesperson for Porter, who represented an Orange County congressional district for three terms before an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate last year, did not make her available for an interview for this story.
But in a recent television interview with KTLA, Porter acknowledged she “could have handled things better.”
“I will continue to try to hold myself to do better. That’s what I can promise,” said Porter, 51, who also didn’t rule out the possibility that additional, similar videos could surface.
Porter’s Democratic opponents have already cut campaign ads highlighting the videos. Some have called for her to drop out of the race completely.
“We need a leader who will solve hard problems and answer simple questions,” said former L.A. mayor and fellow gubernatorial contender Antonio Villaraigosa.
“It’s time for her to drop out of this race,” said Betty Yee, California’s former state controller.
Porter has maintained support among her allies, including Rep. Dave Min, a Democrat who replaced her in Washington to represent California’s 47th Congressional District.
“Katie Porter is a fighter, she’s smart as whip, and as a single mom, she understands the issues California’s working families are facing,” said Min, Porter’s one-time rival who already endorsed her gubernatorial race. “She would make a great governor, and I’m proud to support her.”
Yet, the mainline Democratic Party, noted Sarah Hill, who teaches political science at Cal State Fullerton, isn’t rushing to her defense.
“The party is not coming to her defense, and I don’t know if there’s much she can do at this point,” said Hill. “They have this opinion of her. Maybe a stronger apology; maybe trying to build bridges, but it seems to me they’ve made up their minds more or less: ‘This isn’t our person.’”
“They don’t love her. They haven’t loved her,” Hill said of the firebrand progressive. “She’s ruffled too many feathers along the way, and this adds to that.”
‘An immense impact’ on the race
Aside from the timing factor, Porter has another notch in the positive column: Among the declared candidates, it’s not immediately clear who the alternative, de facto leader is.
“There’s not another Democrat that folks seem to like as much as they were leaning toward Katie Porter,” said Hill.
That means it might behoove Porter to try to change the subject, experts said.
“In a field of several Democrats, she’s almost certainly the most progressive candidate in the race, and reinforcing those credentials may persuade a lot of left-leaning voters that they can handle someone with a bad temper who they agree with on the issues,” said Schnur, the former campaign consultant.
If the KTLA interview was meant to be her apology, then it’s time to move on and redirect the media narrative, said Matt Lesenyie, an expert in California politics who teaches at Cal State Long Beach.
“The biggest thing hasn’t been a performance issue. It’s not like she got caught with a briefcase full of money or some corruption or incompetence,” said Lesenyie.
“Do something else. Have an event. Be at a food bank,” he said.
But all that is strategy advice given the current crop of Democratic candidates in the race.
There’s been a growing effort to recruit Padilla, California’s senior U.S. senator, to enter the race.
Padilla’s entry into politics in the early 1990s was fueled by the politics of the late 1980s and early 1990s San Fernando Valley and L.A., amid the city’s growing Latino base. Padilla, 52, served in the state legislature and as California’s secretary of state before his appointment, and eventual election, to the U.S. Senate, where he became California’s first Latino to hold a full-term seat.
That political resume would almost certainly propel him to pole position in the race.
A spokesperson for Padilla has maintained he’s focused on the ongoing special election on redistricting at the moment.
Speaking of redistricting, there are also rumblings about billionaire Tom Steyer, 68, who has dropped several million dollars into ads supporting Proposition 50, the pro-redistricting measure before California voters.
And then there’s billionaire developer Rick Caruso, 66, the recent, unsuccessful candidate for L.A. mayor who has said he is “seriously looking into” a run for governor.
If either of the three decided the Porter videos had left her vulnerable and found a reason to reexamine or reconsider a candidacy, said Schnur, it would have “an immense impact” on the race.
“Then she goes from being in the front to a distant second- or third-place candidate in a crowded field,” he said.
In other words, if the gubernatorial race were a game of Battleship, both videos were direct hits on Porter’s campaign — but they didn’t sink her ship.
But with the entry of a formidable Democrat, it may be game over.
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