Katie Porter Is Losing It

Following the Primary Election Tuesday, Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) did not concede gracefully or support her Democratic colleague. She continued to claim the U.S. Senate Primary was “rigged by billionaires.

On Tuesday night, both Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R) won the primary handedly, getting a combined 2/3rds of the vote. As the Globe has extensively covered, the race was expected to be a Schiff v. Porter battle for most of 2023, but a surge by Garvey in the polls in the last several months elevated him up rapidly as conservative and independent voters flocked to a major non-Democrat option.

Porter said that the surge was caused by Schiff’s ads giving more credence to Garvey and galvanizing the GOP vote and essentially blocking her out of the race.

However, as the Globe, political experts, and other outlets have pointed out, while the ads may have been a factor, Porter simply didn’t react well when a strong GOP challenger entered the race. She underestimated the number of people in California who didn’t want a progressive leader in office and preferred either Schiff or Garvey. Also not helping was another progressive, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), being in the race.

To put it simply, the Schiff ad campaign could have explained Garvey winning by a few percentage points. But right now, Schiff is sitting at 1,320,629, or 33.3%, Garvey at 1,276,803, or 32.3%, and Porter at 551,862 votes, or 13.9%. This is with 57% of the vote in. As a pollster told the Globe on Wednesday “Katie Porter lost because of Katie Porter.”

And now Porter is going a bit off the deep end. In a post on X, Porter said “Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and voted to shake up the status quo in Washington. Because of you, we had the establishment running scared — withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election.”

Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and voted to shake up the status quo in Washington. Because of you, we had the establishment running scared — withstanding 3 to 1 in TV spending and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election. (1/)

— Katie Porter (@katieporteroc) March 6, 2024

In another, she goes even further, explaining what rigged means following a huge backlash to her first post. It was essentially her patronizingly writing on a white board in social media post form, which is totally on brand for her.

Please find a statement from me below. pic.twitter.com/as8H2cHWL8

— Katie Porter (@katieporteroc) March 7, 2024

Rather get a ton of support, she was immediately called out by both Democrats and Republicans alike. Lee gave a respectful end to her campaign, and based on past instances, Garvey and Schiff would have bowed out with class as well. Porter’s responses showed a sore loser mentality and poor sportsmanship. Most tellingly however, it was all about her rather than thanking the voters. Lee, Schiff, and Garvey, love them or hate them, all thanked their voters Tuesday night. Porter instead went on a rant.

Here are some responses, almost all from Democrats, in reaction to her posts in response tweets:

• “You should have congratulated Adam Schiff, thanked your voters, thanked your campaign, and said you would work to help get Adam elected because democracy is on the ballot. Then waved. I’m so disappointed.”
• “This is so petty and a terrible look for a Democrat. All you had to do was thank your staff, your voters and donors and congratulate your colleague, Adam Schiff. Instead you pulled a Trump, then doubled down. It’s so insulting to those of us who appreciated your work in the House.”
• “This is doubling down. Why can’t you just say, ‘Congratulations to Congressman Schiff. He won by our electoral rules and he will represent Californians well in the Senate.’ It’s not hard, and I voted for both of you. You don’t want to be explaining definitions to constituents.”
• “Was it rigged or just another dirty ‘trick’ Adam Schiff pulled, when Nancy Pelosi endorsed him? BTW, who advised you to leave the House and told you had a chance to replace Feinstein AND to announce while Feinstein was…or shall we say, had not yet announced her retirement?”
• “Congresswoman, this is so sour and petty. You’re better than this.”
• “You threw away a seat in congress for nothing. This isn’t on Schiff, it’s on you.”
• “Democrats so conveniently forget how they cried about rigged elections in 2000 and 2016. Lol.”

It should be noted that this wasn’t cherry picking. This was literally going down the list of tweet responses.

It’s obvious that Porter is now in a meltdown mode. She gave up her House seat for this, and now will be out of Washington starting in January.

“Porter’s Comms and PR people need to get her under control now,” Stephanie Lewis, a pollster in Southern California, told the Globe Thursday. “These posts are hurting her. Like you said, the smart thing would have been to thank voters, support Schiff, then move on. Take a teaching job for a few years, then go back in another race, maybe an Orange County Commissioner or Mayor of Irvine or something. Then she could say all these things about the system going against her even though she has now been a long-time Congresswoman.”

“She’s angry she lost and angry she lost by a huge margin. She’s angry that a Republican beat her this badly, she’s angry that the race had a huge split vote, and she’s especially angry that she gave up her House seat for this. This is not the classy move. There’s no class here. Schiff and Garvey aren’t gloating. Lee gave an exit of a seasoned professional. You can’t fault them for that. Porter you can fault. She could have had a point if the race was close, but she was trounced. Her supporters are surprised she is acting this way. She needs to take this as a lesson in politics. You are going to lose at some point. Biden lost some early races in his career. Trump lost the New York Mayoral election.”

“If you fall off a horse, you get back on it. You don’t blame the horse for being a part of a conspiracy against you.”