Brilliant Move by Katie Porter to Secure Diane Feinstein’s Senate Seat

By Colleen O’Connor

Once you have witnessed a comet streak across the sky or a double rainbow stretch across a mountaintop, you never forget the sight.

Once, you have seen Rep. Katie Porter deliver a takedown of corporate and political bigwigs during Congressional hearings, using just a small white board and some numbers, you never forget that moment.

And now, after just being sworn in for her third term, Porter has just delivered another memorable moment by stealing the march on multiple competitors and announcing her run for Senator Diane Feinstein’s seat.

First out of the gate, Porter has already hit the major cable news shows, garnered above the fold notice in most news sites, and simultaneously launched email fundraising pitches. A brilliant jump to the fore while others ponder their decisions.

Imagine, she has reached escape velocity from the chaos now swallowing the House, dared others to announce, and tactfully admitted what is common knowledge, the 89-year old Feinstein may leave office sooner than the primary calendar.

Add to this, the unusual credentials and contrasts that Porter represents. She is well-qualified. Young (age 49) and a woman of convictions.

How rare has that become in the current political environment.

A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Yale, and Harvard Law, Porter scored her congressional victories in that purple-ist of purple districts (Orange County which launched Richard Nixon’s political career), and recently the one that helped deliver for Nancy Pelosi’s speakership.

It includes parts of Long Beach and Irvine, Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Seal Beach, all heavily Republican areas with college-educated women voters who were motivated after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. A once upon a time GOP-leaning district in a liberal, Democrat-leaning state.

A relentless campaigner, Porter is also a prodigious fundraiser—raising $26 million, with $7.7 million cash on hand. In short, she appeals to the maligned “elite” and the working class, plus the post- Rove v. Wade women that make up a huge bloc of California voters.

Those voters sent two women to the U.S. Senate to represent them for decades, Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Being a woman vying for an open seat provides another strength for Porter.

In addition, Porter joins a list of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s former law students now in prominent positions of power. Most notably, the new Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, age 37.

See the list; highly educated female, law professor, mother of three school-age children, young and fearless.

She checks all the boxes, hence, the jungle primary fight on the Democratic side has already begun. Some calling Porter’s early announcement “disrespectful,” other “f-ing crazy,” others counter by “raising money for the flood victims,” etc.

What Porter sensed and has scored on is the fact that Governor Newsom has promised to nominate “a black woman” to the post. Porter just check-mated that. He has already named one Senator via resignation of Boxer. Naming two would be challenged quickly as “un-Democratic.”

And an early entry also garnered greater name id. Essential in any race.

A brilliant move.