How Katie Porter’s strongest asset came to haunt her California governor run

Over the past three decades, Katie Porter hasn’t changed much. She was always a high achiever, as a protégé Harvard Law student studying under then-professor, now-Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and as a first-time congresswoman who flipped an Orange County seat blue in the House of Representatives. During that campaign and her other House campaigns, and when she launched a later bid for California senator, she always billed herself the same way: a single mother, a lawyer and professor, and unafraid to speak passionately on issues.

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Porter, 52, is also now the only woman out of eight main candidates running for California governor, a defining characteristic that is being used against her.

She came to Congress as an experienced consumer advocacy lawyer and managed to flip a red district in 2018 as part of the blue midterm wave during the first Trump administration. She ran a campaign that specifically tested Donald Trump’s policies, calling out his weakening of health care protections and his tax cuts that largely benefited corporations. Once in Washington, she gained a reputation as a person with sharp elbows and an outspoken, but measured, approach. She would grill executives during hearings, her trusted accessory a white board she’d scribble across as she interrogated Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, about poverty-level wages at his company or pharmaceutical company bosses for putting profits ahead of patient care. She was willing to break away from fellow Democrats, including then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, if it meant defending her beliefs. 

“The white board moments were about doing oversight. They were about holding someone to account to try to get answers,” Porter told SFGATE in an exclusive interview just hours before the May 14 gubernatorial debate in San Francisco.

But as the years went on, the very things that helped elect Porter — her bold, no-nonsense persona, and her comfort with doing things her way — would soon be the things that weakened her image. Once the front-runner to succeed Gavin Newsom, she is now flailing in the final weeks of an unpredictable governor’s race.

Porter was famous for her attitude. Then it came to haunt her.

Porter is proud of her white board gotcha moments, but “as a governor that is not the role,” Porter told SFGATE. She said there is an assumption that her tone toward people in power “translates how I relate to my team for example … and that is not correct.”

One of the first public accusations about the mistreatment of her staff came up in 2022, when leaked texts showed Porter reprimanding a member of her team for not following COVID-19 protocol, accusing the staffer of getting her sick. The texts painted Porter as a boss with a no-mercy approach, but safety protocols during that time were still in effect in most workplaces. Then she got heat again in 2023, after announcing a run against Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which sparked its own drama because it was seen as disrespectful to run against the tenured Democrat. Politico wrote that year about how Porter had a “bad boss” problem, with unverified rumors swirling about her harsh treatment of staffers and high turnover on her team. At the time, she responded to the criticism on a podcast, saying that she was “willing to expect people to work hard. I work hard, and I think that’s what the American people should expect.”

During that run for Senate in 2024, Porter campaigned on the fact that she was a single mom who drove a minivan and understood everyday affordability issues. But her polarizing reputation came to surface. The Washington Post reported conversations with former staffers who said she was brilliant and liked her policies but had concerns with her approach as a boss. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Porter admitted that her attitude may seem harsh, but she’s really just “more willing to call out the nonsense.” She ended the race in third place and blamed her loss on special interests and billionaires.

When Porter first jumped in the governor’s race in March 2025, she had by far the most impressive resume as a high-profile former U.S. congresswoman. At the time, over a dozen candidates were flirting with running, mostly men and most without much name recognition. There were three other women: former state legislator Toni Atkins, former state Controller Betty Yee, and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis. (Former Vice President Kamala Harris was rumored to be toying with a run, but she eventually announced that July that she would sit out.)

As the field grew more crowded, Porter tried to appeal to voters with her firm belief in universal free childcare and her pledges to make tuition-free colleges and build more housing across the state. Her years of experience and name recognition helped propel her as a leading candidate. She had an edge in the polls up until November, when two videos surfaced in the same day that agitated old rumors about her.

In one video, she threatened to leave in the middle of a tense interview with a longtime CBS News reporter, asking for a “pleasant” and “positive” conversation. Another video showed Porter cursing at a staff member who stepped into frame during an on-camera interview in 2021. The videos went viral, prompting Porter to once again defend herself against allegations of mistreatment and a short temper. Democrats in the race called for Porter to drop out. 

“Do I dispute when people say things like I walked out? Yes. Because my butt didn’t even get out of the chair. I stayed. I did the whole interview,” Porter told SFGATE about the CBS News exchange. “Did I get frustrated at that staffer when she walked in that video again and again and again? Yes, and I apologized to her five years ago.” 

At the time, Porter apologized and remained in the race — but the leaks gave her competitors an opening.

From a shoo-in to soldiering on

As early as September 2024, when it was rumored Porter was considering a run for governor, polling from the University of Southern California found that she was ahead of the pack, . Voters were familiar with her after they’d just seen her name on the ballot for Senate. In December 2024, months before she announced a run, she was again named in early polling and had strong initial support. 

Harris eventually announced in July 2025 that she would not run, clearing the way for Porter to be the front-runner. Porter continued to enjoy the lead in early polling, but as more Democrats filled the race, support began to splinter. 

Both Eric Swalwell, then a congressman representing the East Bay, and billionaire Tom Steyer jumped in the race in November. Around that time, two of the leading Republican candidates, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News host Steve Hilton, began rising up in the polls — and swapping places for first. 

Xavier Becerra, the former health secretary in the Biden administration, joined the race as well, and he and Swalwell enjoyed similar name recognition to Porter. (Swalwell was an impeachment manager during the second impeachment of Donald Trump.) They rose quickly in the polls and began to be neck-and-neck with Porter. In April, when sexual assault allegations against Swalwell forced him to drop out of the governor’s race, and from Congress, Becerra was the candidate to boost up to double-digit support. He is now leading the race as Porter currently hovers in the 10-12% support range. 

“What’s safe has somehow become more important than smart, effective, passionate, brave, all of those accomplishments and those things,” Porter said, when asked about Becerra’s lead. “It’s hard for people to believe in something they haven’t seen before, and Californians haven’t seen a woman governor.”

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The boys’ club

Porter hasn’t been able to shake the names people call her, and admitting to her faults just might not be enough for a voter base who are likely sick and tired of politicians’ apologies. This, she reasons, is why Becerra, a mainstream Democrat with a more muted personality, is the leading candidate after Swalwell dropped out. 

News reports have honed in on her outbursts. Bianco, the Riverside Republican candidate, called Porter a “crazy mother” during an KNBC-TV debate earlier this month and suggested that Porter “might” need a lecture on how to be a good parent. The crowd reacted, but Porter kept her composure. 

In another debate aired on CNN a few days later, Porter pointed out the double standards that she is up against. 

“I can’t believe that on a stage with 30 minutes of interrupting and bickering and name calling and shouting and disrespect for everyone up here who’s stepping into public service, that anyone wants to talk about my temperament,” Porter said. At another point she said: “Boys, boys. Enough with the bickering.”

A recent New York Times op-ed, which picked a nickname for the gubernatorial candidates, pegged Porter as the “Mean Girl.” When SFGATE asked Porter how she felt when she read the Times piece, Porter contemplated the question.

“It was obviously a gendered comment. I didn’t see anybody else have a ‘boy’ in front of them,” Porter said. “… I thought it was immature, and disappointing, and if she wanted to say tough-as-balls lady, no-bulls—t lady, fine. But ‘mean girl’ felt juvenile.”

Porter knows she’s made poor judgment calls. In a recent TV ad, she referred to the controversial 2021 staffer video, asking her supporters in the background to get out of her shot and smiling to signal she is in on the joke. One of Steyer’s staffers is alleged to have leaked the video of Porter’s outburst. While it is typical for campaigns to dig up dirt on candidates, commonly known as “opposition research,” Porter suggested to SFGATE that the leak could have broken federal law, as the video recording was the property of the federal Department of Energy. 

Porter told SFGATE that a week before the San Francisco debate, she told Steyer that the video leak “had played into certain gendered views of women candidates.”

“I never heard of this before she asked me about it [last week],” Steyer told SFGATE. “I have absolutely no idea, no interest. Look, her issues with her staff are for her to worry about. I have spent zero time worrying about her problems with her staff, and I’m not going to start now.”

Porter isn’t the only woman to be criticized for and rumored to treat their staff poorly. Similar criticism followed Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar. In fact, a handful of both men and women senators and members of Congress have been called out for high turnover of staff, according to data compiled by LegiStorm. (Porter isn’t on LegiStorm’s list.)

“I would just like to see a full-on treatment of every candidate’s temperament if we think that’s an important quality,” Porter told SFGATE. “… It’s clearly something voters seem to think is important. I have not heard in the five debates the word ‘temperament’ be used with regard to any other candidate. I think that is because that’s a word uniquely applied to women.”

Porter has been the lone woman in the race for a month (Yee suspended her campaign April 20). The other women’s decisions to drop out (or not run, in the case of Harris) while all but one of the men remain is indicative of something, Porter told SFGATE. She is still hovering around 10% in the polls — behind others, but still with a chance. She recently secured the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board, which noted that Porter is known for “aggressive” question-asking and for her “infamous yelling” at a staffer, but said: “Both are superficial reasons to support or dismiss her candidacy.” The board praised her evidence-based policy plans and track record in Congress. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.)

“Most of my other campaigns had a woman in the race or a lot of them,” Porter told SFGATE. She unseated Rep. Mimi Waters in Congress in Orange County and faced former Rep. Barbara Lee in the Senate race that Adam Schiff ultimately won. 

“This has been a very different dynamic to watch three qualified women exit and zero men, other than the one accused of sexual assault, exit,” she continued. “I think [that] has been telling.”