March 11 (UPI) — Former congresswoman Katie Porter on Tuesday announced her 2026 candidacy for governor of California.
“What California needs now is a little bit of hope and a whole lot of grit. Fresh blood and new ideas. Leaders with the backbone to fight for what’s right,” Porter said in a video.
“That’s why I am running for governor,” she added.
Porter, 51, was a consumer protection attorney prior to entering Congress in 2019, representing California’s swing 47th district. She lost a 2024 primary election race to now-Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
“In Congress, I held the Trump administration’s feet to the fire when they hurt Americans,” she said. “As governor, I won’t ever back down when Trump hurts Californians — whether he’s holding up disaster relief, attacking our rights or our communities, or screwing over working families to benefit himself and his cronies.”
Porter, a law professor, is well-known as an often fiery orator, particularly when officials sat center stage for her legendary public grillings on Capitol Hill during which she used large props and displays to make her points.
On Tuesday, her campaign also released a poll suggesting that Porter is the “clear frontrunner” by 28 points among the likely and currently declared gubernatorial candidates.
Meanwhile, there has been speculation that former Vice President Kamala Harris may be eyeing the state’s top job in Sacramento.
The campaign noted that as a UCI professor before entering the U.S. House of Representatives, Porter had been appointed by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris as the state’s independent monitor of banks in a nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement.
