A Clue About What's Next For Katie Porter

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KATIE PORTER’S POLL Orange County’s Democrat Congresswoman, ultra-liberal, and mega-fundraiser Katie Porter won’t be in Congress next year after she gave up her seat to unsuccessfully run for Senate, losing the open primary on the Democrat side to Congressman Adam Schiff.

So is Porter going to ride off into Orange County sunset, politically speaking? Not quite. At least not yet. Porter announced this month that she is launching a new state-wide political committee, Woman Up, which she plans to use to raise money and support women running for the state legislature and other offices across California.

But read between the lines: Porter’s other goal of the PAC is to start building support for a potential run for governor of California in 2026.

According to Politico California, Porter’s Women Up PAC just commissioned a poll on who California voters might support in the 2026 gubernatorial race. That poll of 10 candidates (which you can check out here) showed Porter as the clear front-runner, leading the pack with 24%; no other Democrat candidate tested even broke into double digits.

• On the Republican side, 2024 Senate candidate Steve Garvey was the favorite with 21% of the vote, followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco at 14%.

The PAC has been pushing the poll around Sacramento. Porter hasn’t even announced she is running yet, but this tactic is common strategy to (1) convince donors and other power players to support your potential campaign, (2) clear the field by persuading potential opponents to stay out of the race, and (3) create media buzz.

Notably, Porter’s poll omitted one largely-looming name from the list of potential candidates: Kamala Harris. Harris hasn’t spoken publicly yet about her future plans, but the idea of a Harris for Governor 2026 campaign is already being floated around. If Harris were to jump into the race, Porter’s status as the front-runner - given Harris’ universal name ID, donor-base, and support among Democrats - would likely evaporate.

• A recent poll from UC Berkeley IGS taken before the November 5th election found that 46% of California voters would be likely to support Harris if she were to run for governor.

For now, Porter tells the OC Register she is focusing on returning to her job as a professor at UC Irvine.

Porter finished in a distant third in the 2024 open Senate primary, losing by fifteen points to both Adam Schiff (D) and Steve Garvey (R). Porter later called the election “rigged” (verbiage she took heat for from other Democrats) and blamed both $10 million in attack ads against her funded by a pro-crypto currency PAC, as well as cynical (but legal) ads funded by Schiff’s campaign boosting Steve Garvey to ensure Porter didn’t make it into the top two.

WHAT OC VOTED FOR A new post-election poll from UC Irvine offers some insights into what issues most motivated Orange County voters in November. Some key takeaways (you can read the full polling memo here):

• It’s the economy, stupid. Just 9% of OC voters said their economic position is “better now” than it was four years ago. The economy was by far the top issue for voters in OC this year.
  

• Abortion was not the primary motivator Democrats hoped it would be. 70% of OC voters are pro-choice, believing abortion should be legal in “all” or “most” cases, but while Harris’ voters were virtually all in that pro-choice camp, nearly half of Trump’s support came from that same pool of voters.
  

• Minorities shifting right. Trump won 37% of Latino voters and 39% of Asians, following similar trends seen across the country. (Last week, we discussed the eye-popping shifts toward Trump in cities like Costa Mesa and Irvine).
  

• GOP not the party of the wealthy. While Harris won voters making under $50,000 a year by double digits, Trump’s best performance was with lower middle class voters ($50K - $75K), winning that group by 10 points, and narrowly winning middle and upper-middle class voters earning between ($75K - $150K). Trump only won voters making over $150K by two points, popping the Democrats’ narrative that Trump is the party of “the rich.”
  

• Local news still dominant. While the poll found newer platforms like TikTok and YouTube surging as sources of news for OC voters, particularly among younger people, local TV was still cited as the number one source for news overall, and was even a major source for news among younger voters.

HIGH SPEED DERAIL? Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may be looking to claw back federal dollars from at least one California initiative - the state’s massively delayed, over-budgeted, notorious high-speed rail project connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump’s picks to fight government waste through DOGE, have publicly criticized the rail project - and specifically $6.8 billion it has already received in federal funding - as a “wasteful vanity project, burning billions in taxpayer cash, with little prospect for completion in the next decade.” The Trump Administration rescinded nearly $1 billion in federal funding for the high-speed rail project in 2019, but funding was restored under Biden.

• 🚨 NOT A DRILL California Republican Congressman Kevin Kiley, who represents a district in the Sacramento area, introduced a bill in Washington this week to prohibit any further federal funding for the high-speed rail project.
  

• Congressional Republicans, even from California, have long been skeptical of the project, demanding documents and other information to get an idea of what is going on.

🧠 SOME BACKGROUND California voters narrowly approved a ballot measure in 2008 authorizing nearly $10 billion in bonds to construct a high-speed rail line connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles, which was estimated to be completed by 2020 and cost around $33 billion.

More than fifteen years later, California’s high-speed rail dream has turned into a costly, delayed, logistical nightmare. The LA-SF line now has no estimated date of completion while estimated costs for the project have soared to over $135 billion.

Governor Newsom and the High-Speed Rail Authority are instead now focusing on completing a smaller 171-mile stretch of the line from Merced to Bakersfield, estimated to cost around $35 billion (the original budget for the entire project) with a completion date between 2030 and 2033.

The high-speed rail project has become a poster-child punch line of government mismanagement, incompetence, and waste:

1. A rush to secure federal funding led to improper planning for the construction process, or as one advisor to the High-Speed Rail Authority put it, “we got the cart before the horse.”}
   

2. Political maneuvering to win as much buy in as possible led to shifts in strategy and even the route, resulting in the line veering east through the Central Valley instead of following a more direct route from LA to SF along I-5 (check out the map below).
   

3. That decision to detour through the Central Valley led to more timely and costly environmental reviews and land-use legal battles.

Despite all this, a 2022 poll found 56% of California voters want the state to continue working on the Merced-Bakersfield portion despite the delays (notably, that poll’s question wording did not ask about the entire LA-SF project or mention the soaring costs).

🔥 BOTTOM LINE If DOGE is serious about cutting out government waste and inefficiency, federal subsidies for California’s high-speed rail line is a good place to start. Few projects are more emblematic of public sector mismanagement. It’s leaders care more about ‘climate change’ and ‘transportation equity’ than actually building a functioning rail line that people will use.

Even if California does succeed in keeping the federal funding intact, it doesn’t come remotely close to filling the massive $100 billion+ funding hole the state finds itself in. Project officials themselves admit they currently have no idea how to secure the rest of the funding.

💡 AND THEN THERE’S THIS… High-speed rail in California isn’t impossible. Brightline, a private rail firm which already runs a successful bullet train in Florida, has recently started work on a 200-mile high-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas to Los Angeles, which they plan to open in time for the 2028 Olympics. Yes, they are receiving a few billion in federal funding, but their record of success and efficiency is on full display compared to the dumpster fire that California’s state-driven project has been.

SPEAKING OF TRUMP’S CALIFORNIA CHOPPING BLOCK Trump can already claim one scalp in his opposition to California’s radical climate change agenda…and he’s not even president yet.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) was scheduled to vote this month on a new rule mandating 10% of new motorcycles sold in the state be electric by 2028 and 50% by 2035. But CARB just canceled the vote and shelved the rule altogether.

Why? Because federal law under the Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant states waivers to enforce their own emissions standards as California is trying to do here … and Trump has made it abundantly clear his EPA won’t be granting any waivers for more electric vehicle mandates.

• Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, has been a vocal opponent of electric vehicle mandates in his home state of New York. One news site called Zeldin a “nightmare” for the electric vehicle industry.

In fact, California currently has eight requests for waivers on various electric mandates still awaiting approval with Biden’s EPA. With just over a month left in Biden’s presidency, it awaits to be seen if his EPA will ultimately approve them all before Trump’s team takes over. Trump could reverse the waivers once he’s in office, but it’s far easier to deny them in the first place.

COSTA MESA COURT VICTORY It’s not everyday that a city in Orange County wins a high-profile case in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet that’s precisely what Costa Mesa just achieved after a three-judge panel with the 9th Circuit upheld the city’s laws around sober living facilities and thus earns an honorable mention.

The plaintiff was the Ohio House, a facility in a residential neighborhood that has served men in substance-recovery with detached units and communal space since 2012. However, when Costa Mesa updated its regulations around group living spaces, they required Ohio House to apply for a permit. The city then denied it, due to another sober living facility that was already within 550 feet of the property, and Ohio House was ordered to close.

Instead, Ohio House filed a lawsuit against Costa Mesa in 2019, claiming that, because many of those in substance-abuse recovery are disabled, the city’s laws discriminate against those with disabilities from accessing fair housing, among other arguments.

• 3⃣0⃣0⃣ According to Costa Mesa Mayor John Stephens, there are 300 sober living facilities within the city limits.

In 2022, a U.S. District Judge sided with Costa Mesa, denying Ohio House’s claims of discrimination. It was appealed to the 9th Circuit, which this month again sided with Costa Mesa, writing that disability status still “does not inherently dictate whether such facilities will contribute to higher traffic, lack of sufficient parking or increased noise,” which are all in the city’s interest to regulate.

• The 9th Circuit’s stamp of approval on Costa Mesa’s ordinances will have ramifications across the country, as other cities feel legally confident in enacting their own ordinances and defending them in court.

According to the city, now that the case is concluded, Ohio House will be forced to close. Meanwhile, Mayor Stephens said the city spend over $20 million waging the five-year legal battle in court.

WAIT, THERE'S MORE...

🙄 Latino Republicans in the state Assembly and Senate are being denied entry into the California Latino Legislative Caucus, a story which the Democrat chair of the Caucus dismissed as “media sensationalism.”

💲 The tax on California workers’ paychecks for the State Disability Insurance (SDI) program will rise from 1.1% to 1.2% starting in January after state regulators approved the increase to meet a new state law that expanded disability benefits.

👍 San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez said she would not enforce a new “sanctuary” illegal immigrant law passed by the County Board of Supervisors, writing that the Board has no authority to dictate her office’s policy towards cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

🚀 Defense manufacturers based in Southern California are celebrating President Trump’s win, and his commitment to bringing industrialization back to the United States, as a harbinger of new jobs and growth.

☠️ A new report from the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office in Sacramento found that California's rate of young adult (aged 15 - 44) mortality has increased 30% since 2019, with fatal drug overdoses accounting for 60% of the increase.