Katie Porter is the front-runner for governor: Can she shake the Dems up? | Opinion
Heading into the California gubernatorial election, Katie Porter seems to be the front-runner — for the moment.
Before Vice President Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, her donor-backing and name recognition put her ahead of any hopeful Democrat candidate. After announcing that she’s sitting out the race last week, the playing field has completely shifted.
As a young person who cast her first vote in a presidential election this past November, watching Harris flail against Donald Trump was a disillusioning moment. More than anything, the prevailing sentiment among my peers has been that the Democratic party needs new blood.
Coming from Irvine, Katie Porter’s hometown, I’m not confident she can be the change the Democratic party desperately needs.
A whiteboard and a dream
Porter made a name for herself during her 2017 campaign for Congress. Flipping California’s 45th Congressional District for the first time since its founding in 1953, Porter’s success accompanied a blue wave that flipped all seven seats centered in Orange County.
She also made an impression during her tenure in Congress by grilling billionaires during Congressional hearings. She was the one with the whiteboard, you can’t miss it.
Beyond the headline-grabbing whiteboard moments, Porter hasn’t made a particular impression on me. She’s a classic Democrat, a pupil of old guard Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren with whom she’s been linked since her days studying at Harvard Law.
Her time in Congress can be summed up by the routine Democratic Trump-blaming. She, like many other Democrats, failed to establish a platform beyond “Trump is evil.”
As a representative of Orange County, she failed to make her constituents feel seen. In 2023, as protests raged against the Islamic Republic in the global Iranian diaspora, Iranian-Americans in the Los Angeles and Orange County area called for solidarity with the protests and action taken against the regime. As an Iranian-American from Irvine, my community and I were disappointed in her failure to address or take action.
This is all compounded by her loss in the 2024 Senatorial race, where she landed third behind Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey. She failed to rally enough support and, rather than looking inward as to why her campaign lost, she blamed donors, calling the election “rigged.”
For her gubernatorial campaign, Porter has yet again failed to establish a platform beyond Trump. She committed herself to protecting Californians from external threats — a nod to Trump’s assault on California with the national guard.
But by framing the issues California faces as external, she fails to address our internal problems.
The Democratic playbook
Democrats are having an identity crisis. This we know.
They have failed to establish a raison-dêtre outside of Trump; they have shied away from backing candidates that actually stand for something, like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani; and they have failed to adapt to a Trumpian political landscape, riding the coattails of pluralism that has cost them elections.
Instead, they have held fast to Obama era politics and leaders, nominating Hillary Clinton (Obama’s secretary of state) and Joe Biden (Obama’s vice president.)
Harris’ presidential campaign was counting on women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Instead she saw significant losses among Black and Hispanic voters.
Katie Porter’s campaign, as it stands today, is following the old Democratic playbook.
The Democratic party continues to appeal to these communities on a surface level without addressing the economic issues plaguing them. It’s what cost them the 2024 presidential election.
I’m not against Porter for governor, but if she’s going to play by the old rules and continue to point her finger at Trump for every issue facing California, I’m not confident in her ability to bring “fresh blood” and “new ideas” to the seat or the party.
What we need is a leader who actually believes in something and isn’t afraid to say it plainly. Someone who looks inward and points the finger at how the Democratic party has come up short the past four years.
If Porter shows backbone and proves she can pivot, I’d throw my weight behind her. But from where I’m standing now, the prospect seems dire.
This story was originally published August 9, 2025 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Katie Porter is the front-runner for governor: Can she shake the Dems up? | Opinion."
