Katie Porter doesn’t back away from a tough fight

George Skelton, Tribune News Service

Katie Porter doesn’t mince words, she’s plain spoken and can be dynamic. Can she be elected governor? More importantly, can she govern? Answer to question 1: She has a good shot, based on polls — if Kamala Harris doesn’t run. Non-answer to question 2: Who knows? At least she has never seemed to be risk-averse. She doesn’t back away from a tough fight. But that doesn’t necessarily mean success. And she has never held an executive office. The 51-year-old former congresswoman from Orange County stepped into the 2026 race for California governor last week, joining an underwhelming field of Democratic candidates trying to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Most will scatter to the winds if Harris enters the race. She’s the joker card in the contest. The failed 2024 Democratic presidential candidate has said she’ll decide whether to run by summer’s end.

The thinking in political circles is that Harris’ name familiarity and fundraising ability would put her beyond the reach of current contenders or virtually anyone else who might conceivably run. The former vice president has a long record of election success in her native state, having won races for the U.S. Senate, state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney. But although Harris has wide support among Democratic voters in California, I suspect it’s shallow — only ankle deep. The then-senator bombed while running for president in 2020 and was trailing badly — most notably in her home state — before dropping out ahead of the primaries. Last year, she clobbered Republican Donald Trump in California, but not nearly as lopsidedly as Joe Biden did in 2020.

By next year’s election, California Democrats could be so apoplectic over President Donald Trump they’ll turn on Harris for losing to such a flawed human being. But Porter, now teaching at UC Irvine’s law school, has long been a Harris ally. The then-attorney general chose the consumer protection lawyer in 2012 to monitor a multibillion-dollar legal settlement with major banks over home foreclosures. Porter later won three House elections in a competitive district — and national prominence by grilling Trump administration officials and corporate bosses using a whiteboard to simplify complex policy issues.

Porter almost certainly would step out of the gubernatorial race if Harris entered. Her entry “would have a near field-clearing effect on the Democratic side,” Porter said long before announcing her candidacy. And she repeated it last week at a campaign event: “If (Harris) decides to enter this race, I think it is going to have a very, very serious effect on everyone in it, including me.”

Porter told me, however, that “I’m not waiting around. People are hungry for leadership and are worried about what may be coming our way. California wants and deserves to have someone who is all in the fight.”

The fight is particularly against Trump, Porter emphasizes.

“As governor, I won’t ever back down when Trump hurts Californians,” Porter vows in an announcement video. “Whether it’s holding up disaster relief, attacking our rights and our communities or screwing over working families to benefit himself and his cronies.”

Newsom has backed down from directly confronting Trump since the Los Angeles wildfires, trying to avoid angering the vengeful president and jeopardize federal relief funds. The governor also seems to be veering toward the political center to position himself for a 2028 presidential bid.

Give Porter credit for not waiting on Harris to decide. It’s smart politically. It gives her more time to raise money, organize a campaign and reintroduce herself to voters after a failed Senate race last year.

Of course, several Democrats proclaimed their candidacies months ago and have gotten nowhere. That’s for two reasons: They’re not particularly appealing to voters. And voters just aren’t interested yet. People’s political focus is on the chaos created by Trump.

If Harris stepped in, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis would probably pivot from the governor’s race to state treasurer. Others likely to exit include former state legislative leader Toni Atkins, former state controller Betty Yee and state schools chief Tony Thurmond. But not former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaragosa, he insists.

“I’ve made it very, very clear,” Villaraigosa told me. “I’m in it to win. It doesn’t matter who gets in. I don’t know why there’s even a discussion about it.”

Well, one reason is that Villaraigosa hasn’t held elective office in nearly 12 years and has been out of the public spotlight. And he finished a distant third running against Newsom in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. He’s also 72 and voters may be looking for someone younger.

But Villaraigosa wouldn’t need training wheels in Sacramento, where he was an effective Assembly speaker in the late 1990s. “I think I have a pulse of where the people are now,” he said. “They’re looking for competence — not for people just talking ...

“We need to start building again: housing, transportation infrastructure, energy grid. ... They’re saying, ‘get rid of gas stoves, get rid of gas water heaters.’ But they haven’t built any (electricity) transmission lines.” Porter is saying much the same. Like Villaraigosa, she ignored the Democratic establishment last year and supported the anti-crime Proposition 36 to boost penalties for retail theft.