Experts Expound: What now for Katie Porter?

U.S. Rep. Katie Porter’s (D-CA), once considered a rising national star for the Democratic Party, finished a distant third in her bid for the Senate seat once held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).  With that in mind, we posed the following question to our panel of esteemed experts:

With her campaign for U.S. Senate over and her time in the House coming to a close, where does Katie Porter go from here? 

“I’ll start – Who cares? After her disgraceful behavior upon losing a race she was never going to win, I think if she’s smart she will leave the stage completely. She ran her campaign, whined about Schiff’s ad and then copied it, and had the audacity to call the results ‘rigged.’  As far as I know she hasn’t even congratulated Schiff and didn’t show up for Biden’s State of the Union.

But seriously? Katie Porter knew her Congressional seat was going to be strongly contested and possibly hard to hold for the Dems. She was urged to step away from the Senate race when it was clear by every possible calculation that she couldn’t win. She refused. Sorry, but I have absolutely no sympathy or concern about her future in politics. She’s shown her true self in case anyone didn’t already know who she really was.”

“Dancing with the Stars.”

“I assume she starts to make a lot more money.”

“Hard to tell. Her whole campaign was badly conceived and clumsily executed. Yapping on about earmarks and PACs, when the average voter has no idea what either means. And her humorless hectoring, lecturing style was a turn-off to a lot of voters. Some men in focus groups said she reminded them of their ex-wife — or ex-mother-in-law. Neither was a positive description. And she went out with a classless, ungracious rant about ‘rigging.’ If I were her, given how badly she got beat, I’d go back to teaching at UC Irvine.”

“A whole slate of statewide offices will be in play in 2026. Some folks are already running for them (looking at you, Eleni). I imagine Porter will surface in pursuit of one of them. Progressive Dems are lamenting that she even tried to reach for the Senate seat, seeing her disappearance from the House as significant. She’s got a strong constituency there, one that will be available for whatever next step she contemplates.”

Some men in focus groups said she reminded them of their ex-wife — or ex-mother-in-law. Neither was a positive description.

“Professor Porter. University of Sore Losers.”

“No idea but I would hope the Gov would appoint her to something … she is amazing. I hope she stays engaged and if I was Team Biden I would have her travel the university circuit for GOTV.”

“Pretty sure she’s going to have to head back to her teaching gig in order to hold on to her subsidized UC Irvine housing.”

“She needs to take her whiteboard home and rethink her career path.”

“I think she needs to quickly endorse Schiff and focus on Biden reelection and rebuild. Then if the Weiss campaign hits on Min cause him to lose to Baugh then she gets to go back and run for her House seat.”

“Well, she still has her discounted housing through UC Irvine’s law school, so she can end her leave of absence and work her white blackboard there. I mean she got trounced. It is hard to vote for someone you don’t like when there are alternatives. If Dems lose her House seat, she will truly be persona non grata!”

“Katie Porter is the Donald Trump we really did not need: Rigged elections, secret billionaires determining elections, subsided housing, cruelty to staff. Kidding aside, either Newsom or Biden will appoint her to a financial services type of commission or board and set her up for another future statewide run. She will need to do a mea culpa and say that she is angry and said some things and ask for forgiveness, because what she wanted to do was to serve the people of California.”

“Instead of trying to banish Katie Porter, Democrats should go back and read her white boards. The best antidote for MAGA lies about rigged elections is to call out the real culprit: the corrupting influence of big money in politics. In the short-term, Porter would be a strong surrogate for Biden-Harris campaign themes about corporate accountability. Over time, she and her message may prove tougher for big donors to keep at bay.”

No idea but I would hope the Gov would appoint her to something … she is amazing.

“I do think she’d make a great professor. She has a pretty good grasp of elementary concepts but her condescending whiteboard screeds tended to be overly simplistic. That said, I did vote for her as the least bad option we had!”

“California voters know we send more to DC than we get back, so Porter’s position on earmarking was always going to be an issue, especially for the kind of voter who comes out for a March primary (dorks like us). As a communicator, she is not great — always on transmit, never on receive — and Californians like good communicators above all else. If I were her team, I’d be vying to do surrogate work for Biden 2024 and be raising money for the next campaign because she is definitely not going to take a backseat anytime soon. If not managed well by the party she’ll remain a thorn in Schiff’s side.”

“While I think she could be valuable in helping turn out votes as a surrogate for the Biden campaign with very specific demographics, I am not confident she can do so in a manner that doesn’t make the effort all about herself and turn off potential voters in the process. If she wants to continue dabbling in politics, she may want to learn how to be a better team player. Her reputation in D.C. is… not that. All that said, I could see her as a pundit on a major network. She’s perfect for click bait.”

Our panel of experts: Elizabeth Ashford, Hector Barajas, A.G. Block, Barry Brokaw, Samantha Corbin, Jon Costantino, Richard Costigan, Tim Foster, Rex Frazier, John Howard, Fiona Hutton, Gale Kaufman, Steven Maviglio, Mike MeCey, Paul Mitchell, Barbara O’Connor, Jack Ohman, Kassy Perry, Matt Rexroad, Garry South, Paula Treat, Micah Weinberg, Bill Wong, Daniel Zingale