Get your whiteboards out for our next candidate! She knocked off a GQP incumbent in resounding fashion in the 2018 blue wave, and she survived her re-election campaign in 2020 as well. Now, she has a district with people who haven’t had her represent them before. Majority Savers continues “Popular/Unpopular Week” by profiling Rep, Katie Porter of California’s 47th district!
If you want to find my previous entries in this series, I recommend following me or searching for #MajoritySavers as a tag! Majority Savers is also a group now, thanks to 2thanks!
Katie Porter for CA-47
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Candidate Background
Rep. Katie Porter, for all of her popularity, doesn’t really have a compelling background. She is a quintessential American from Iowa farm country. If it weren’t for her winning a seat in Congress, she’d be a professor enjoying tenure — literally.
- She went to undergraduate studies at Yale — majoring in American studies and interning for Sen. Chuck Grassley. That’s right. Like many progressive heroes, she started life out life as a Republican. She studied under future Sen. Elizabeth Warren at Harvard Law School later on.
- She has been a law professor at various universities across America, ranging from UNLV to Iowa to UC-Irvine. It was at the last one she gained tenure and became a citizen of the district that was about to make her famous.
- She has been notorious for her stands for consumer protection. MVP Kamala Harris (as CA Attorney General) tasked Porter with being the watchdog over mortgage funds the banks had to hand over for the Great Recession way back in the early 2010s.
Signature Issues
Here’s a shock — Porter according to DW Nominate is NOT the progressive she claims to be. According to that scoring system, her votes place her amongst the most moderate Democrats in the House. I link to this comment to explain the disparity in scores. My guess is she is being punished for opposing legislation from the left, but I cannot know for sure without a deeper dive.
Anyways, her score is -0.19, which indicates a moderate voting record. She is more liberal than 51% of the entire House, and more moderate than 95% of her fellow Democratic caucus. Obviously, that cannot be true and have her vote with Joe Biden’s agenda nearly 100% of the time. Progressive Punch (which I use when leftists are involved) hold her in much higher esteem, though not as high as the Squad.
Housing Crisis and Homelessness: As a consumer protection advocate, Porter had to deal with the fallout from the Great Recession firsthand. She attacks discriminatory practices in home lending and appraising, and she wishes to support first time homebuyers with better tax credits. By driving down housing costs, she hopes to reduce homelessness as well.
Corporate Reform: She is a scourge of corporate corruption, refusing to take a dime in PAC money and also calling for better oversight of the rich and powerful. Part of the reform includes better worker and consumer protections, including things such as paid family leave.
Environment and Climate Change: Oil drilling is a very sensitive issue for the beach goers of southern California, so it makes sense that Porter has come out against it. She also would support measure much further than the Inflation Reduction Act would go to combat climate change.
Elections History
Recent Elections —
2020 President: Joe Biden (D) 54.5%, TFG (R-inc) 43.4%
2020 House: Katie Porter (D-inc) 53.5%, Greg Raths (R) 46.5%
2022 PVI: D+3
2022 Race Rating: Leans Democratic
There was a time when Orange County was considered reliably Republican turf. It was the turf that won the state for Reagan, and for Nixon as well. Those days are long gone, and Orange County started changing when the demographics of the county started changing. A Congressional district first fell in 1996, but the county remained stubbornly in the thrall of the GQP.
Even during the elections of 2008 and 2012, Obama failed to win the county. That’s how recent a legacy of voting for Democrats is. Clinton was the first Democratic candidate to carry to county since FDR in 1936. Biden would carry the county again 4 years later, and by a wider margin. Orange County is changing, and that was nowhere more evident than during the 2018 blue wave election.
In that election, every square inch of that county was won by a Democratic challenger or by an incumbent Democratic candidate. Perhaps not every city was won, but as a collective the whole county rejected TFG and turned blue. Now, we would give back some of those gains in 2020, but Rep. Katie Porter was not one of the ones to lose. She might this time around, so we need to support her.
Political Tour of the District
This district is much more marginal than the one that Porter won in 2018 and 2020. It includes some very conservative cities that ejected Rep. Harley Rouda from Congress, which are unlikely to support Porter. Her personal brand should be enough to win though.
Here’s where this race will be won in the 47th district.
- Irvine: This is the home base for Porter, and it is important that she turn out everyone willing to vote for her. There are other parts of the district that aren’t nearly as good to her as this city is, so she needs a super charged turnout from the Democratic anchor of the district.
- Costa Mesa: This city is not quite as Democratic as Irvine, but it is still a key part of the coalition Kate Porter needs to get another term in Congress. Full of white and Hispanic voters (Irvine is Asian), it truly is a rainbow coalition she needs to win over her opponent.
Here’s where we need to keep the margins down, or we lose.
- Huntington Beach: This was ground zero against the COVID restrictions in 2020-21. There was definitely a conservative backlash in this area, and now this city is included in Porter’s district. Hopefully the people there have mellowed out and become less hostile, because Porter needs at least 45% of the vote to win here.
- Newport Beach: This city also was heavily featured in conservative backlash to COVID restrictions. It isn’t as large of a city as the other one, but it compensates by being more conservative. Porter needs about 42% of the vote here to win, and I hope she can manage that.
Activism — Help How You Can!
Rep. Katie Porter is so popular that she has a grassroots fundraising army to the point where she racks up astronomical fundraising totals every quarter. She raised a mind boggling $3.78 MILLION for quarter 2, while her opponent Scott Baugh could only raise $449k. She won’t want for anything in her re-election campaign, while Baugh will have to rely on dark money to compete.
Porter has a war chest that could make her competitive statewide if she made the jump to do it. She has a whopping $19.86 MILLION cash on hand, which is enough to compete statewide, let alone in the little 47th district. Baugh only has $1.15 MILLION, which is enough to start but not enough to compete. Join the Porter grassroots army today with your donation!
DONATE TO REP. KATIE PORTER HERE
What she cannot buy is volunteer enthusiasm and canvassing in her district. Sure, it is easier to volunteer for someone so popular, but you still cannot buy it and it has to come from unpaid people. https://katieporter.com/volunteer is the place to go if you are in Orange County and along the coast in particular.
Porter is excessively popular on Twitter and other social media. She has an army of 615k followers on Twitter, where she puts her famous whiteboard to good use.
She also is very popular on Facebook at katieporteroc and on Instagram at katieporteroc.
While I was skeptical of her at first, I have really come to appreciate Rep. Katie Porter as a member of Congress. I can understand her popularity now, where as before I didn’t quite understand why so many liked her. It would be a shame if she were to lose her perch in Congress, which is why Majority Savers is spending the time to profile her and this critical race!
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Katie Porter for CA-47
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