What’s next for Katie Porter after California governor loss?

Katie Porter, after losing the California governor race, plans to continue teaching at UC Irvine School of Law and focus on family. She sees the loss as an opportunity to reset and engage in policy work outside elected office, reflecting on a shift in politics from activism to fear.

Getting your Trinity Audio //trinityaudio.ai player ready...If you’re talking about the short term, Katie Porter has a plan. Her race for California governor now over https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/03/katie-porter-concedes-in-race-for-governor-heres-what-she-had-to-say-to-supporters-on-election-night/ , Porter will continue teaching at UC Irvine School of Law https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/12/13/whats-next-for-katie-porter-for-now-its-teaching-and-learning-she-says/ — she will instruct a bankruptcy course in the fall — and parenting a soon-to-be high school senior who won’t have to uproot to Sacramento in the midst of his final year. But long term? How — or even will — Porter continue in California politics? That’s TBD. “It’s important to think a little bit,” Porter said in a wide-ranging interview this week. After all, it’s only been about three weeks since she conceded the race for governor, sitting solidly in fifth place. But it’s been some 3,000 days, give or take a few, since she first started campaigning in Orange County, kicking off what has been a progressive and high-profile — and at times, snarky https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/10/17/whats-next-for-katie-porters-california-governor-campaign-after-the-viral-videos/ — mark on California politics. Nearly a decade of politics — six years representing an Orange County district in the U.S. House; three years mounting a pair of unsuccessful statewide campaigns — has reinforced Porter’s interest in actual policymaking, she said. And that’s something that often happens outside of elected office. “This race, my campaign, was about policies. I put forth real plans on taxes, real plans on education, real plans on housing, real plans on childcare,” Porter said. “I love that work. And I think there are a lot of opportunities to still do that forward policy work,” she added. “I’m excited to be in my position as a law professor, where my job is to generate good ideas. I think this campaign was a real reminder of how much I like doing that.” Porter didn’t shy away from acknowledging this could be an era of reset for her. “I’m really, really excited about having some time with my family,” the mom of three said. “I think it is good and healthy to have change and good and healthy for people like me to have a chance to rest and to reenergize and to think a little bit — not to be on autopilot, which can come if you’re 25 or 30 years in office.” And with her middle child starting his senior year in the fall, not winning the governor race solved a “mom problem,” she said. “It’s a problem solved as a mom not to figure out what to do with a kid who is a spring semester senior while you have to move to Sacramento to be governor,” she said with a laugh. A campaign motivated by policy or fear? There’s been a striking shift in politics — what’s motivating people, how people consume information — from when she first launched a campaign in April 2018, Porter said. Porter felt voters, particularly Democrats, were “activated” in 2018 to oppose President Donald Trump, then in his first term. They organized the Women’s March, for example, she said, one of the largest single-day demonstrations https://www.britannica.com/event/Womens-March-2017 in history and a tangible way to express opposition to the Republican president. But it’s fear now that permeates politics, she said. Fear of Trump. Fear of a woman leading California for the first time. Fear of the status quo. Fear of shaking things up too much. “What I hear is fear when people say, ‘We can’t afford this or that. We can’t afford a progressive candidate. We can’t afford to run people of color, women for president next cycle. We can’t afford to have a Republican in the top two’ in California’s gubernatorial primary . I don’t think in a healthy democracy you have that expression,” Porter said. “I think this is understandable anxiety about what’s happening in our country. Every day we read in the newspaper about the war, about the reflecting pool, you name it,” Porter said. “That did not put people in a long-term mindset. “We have had budget problems in California for decades. Our housing has been unaffordable for decades. Climate change is a multi-decade fight. By the time we got to the home stretch, I don’t think that’s what people were focusing on. In an election about affordability, supposedly, I don’t think the candidates who had done the most thinking and talking about affordability, I don’t think that was seen as a criterion.” “Instead of being about policy, this race was about fear. And fear manifested itself in lots and lots of different ways,” she said. Even after the election dust has settled a bit, Porter remains confident that she was the candidate who offered the most expertise to California voters in this race, pointing to her policy ideas and political relationships. “Electorates change and what they’re looking for changes,” she said. And that led to former Biden Cabinet official Xavier Becerra and Republican commentator Steve Hilton advancing from the primary. “California has really big problems on housing. And I don’t think we elected somebody who’s really very focused on housing,” Porter said. Porter said she often disagreed with fellow Democrats Tom Steyer and Matt Mahan in the race when it came to revenue plans, as she did with Hilton. “We disagreed on revenue, but what is Becerra’s revenue plan? There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Porter said. Still, she has endorsed Becerra in the race. “We cannot have a governor who will cooperate with the president, who is hell-bent on punishing our state,” she said of Hilton. Porter sees part of the problem — voters’ fear in this race — stems, in part, from the sheer amount and influence of money in politics. This year’s race was the most expensive race for governor in history, and the fifth-most expensive non-presidential race, with $315.8 million in ad spending and reservations, according to an analysis by AdImpact https://adimpact.com/blogs/ca-gov-ad-analysis-the-most-expensive-gubernatorial-race-on-record , which tracks and analyzes advertising. In comparison, the entire 2022 California governor’s race saw $14.7 million in ad spending. The 2021 effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom clocked in at $61 million. Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist who came in third place, spent more than $201 million, which accounted for 64% of every dollar spent in this race, according to AdImpact. But Porter said it is also a symptom of how people are consuming information these days. “The biggest thing I’ve noticed is we went from a lack of information, just people not knowing, to a lot of active misinformation,” Porter said. “Now, it’s just actively wrong things, and I think the degree of certainty of people, even though they are wrong, is really something to see,” she added. Social media — and more broadly, political discourse in general — isn’t being used as a way to get information, she said, but rather a tool to reinforce biases or beliefs, even if the facts are wrong. Porter pointed to the idea, just a few months before Election Day, that two Democrats could advance to the general election. California’s jungle primary system means the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, win the primary and move onto the November election. That was either going to be a very, very terrible outcome, or the best outcome ever — and people were certain in their belief either way, Porter said. They were sure it would be horrific for Democrats to have two of their own tearing each other down, she said, or they were confident it would repress Republican turnout for down-ballot races in the fall. “Actually, I can make the argument either way,” said Porter. There’s been a shift, Porter said, from more engaged political activism to pontificating online. “Now there’s a handful of very aggressively certain people on the internet — which is a pretty far cry from the ‘let’s build a democracy, if we don’t like our representative, let’s figure out what to do,’” types of attitude, Porter said. So what’s next for Porter, politically speaking? She’s still figuring that out. But she’s certainly not going to shy away from offering her opinions on the state of politics along the way. “I was really proud and honored to have the chance to be an elected official , and I was really proud to see Orange County become a place where people felt politically empowered,” Porter said. “I’m not as sure the state felt that way in this election.”