Politics

California Dems Who Had Backed Kamala Harris Now Turn To Failed Candidate Accused Of Being Bad Boss: Poll

BottleOfChocolateMilk, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Some Kamala Harris supporters are now favoring former Democratic Rep. Katie Porter in California’s 2026 gubernatorial race after Harris declined to run, according to a Politico-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll released Thursday.

The poll found that 30% of registered voters who said they would vote for Harris if she made a bid for California’s governorship now intend to back Porter instead. Meanwhile, 16% of Harris supporters said they will support former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, while 11% said they favored former Biden-era Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

The survey comes after Harris, who was rumored to be a potential contender in the race to succeed term-limited incumbent Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced in July that she was passing on a run.

Porter’s “gains from Harris are probably a combination of just being better known and having a clear ideological stamp,” Jack Citrin, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll, told Politico. “She has a particular progressive stamp — more than the other two guys — and I think that’s part of her appeal.”

Porter is leading in a head-to-head matchup against the other candidates in the Golden State’s upcoming gubernatorial race, gaining 21% support, according to the poll. The survey found that Becerra and Villaraigosa tied as the next leading Democrats, notching 9% support each.

Porter, who served in Congress from 2019 to 2025, ran in California’s 2024 Senate race, but came in a distant third in the all-party primary, receiving only 15% of the vote despite raising $28 million. Now-Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, who came in first in the primary, went on the win the general election.

In the aftermath of her poor performance, Porter suggested that the primary was rigged by billionaires.

Additionally, Porter also drew criticism following anonymous complaints against her surfacing from Capitol Hill staffers in December 2022, including one which claimed she was prone to rage, while another alleged that she made racist remarks, Politico reported in January 2023. During an April 2023 appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Porter claimed that “so-called bad bosses” are more commonly women and “people of color” when discussing accusations that she presided over a toxic work environment.

Still, Porter has outraised her competitors in the race for California’s governor’s mansion thus far, securing $3 million between March and June, Politico reported on Aug. 1.

Porter’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The sample of 875 total registered voters, including 367 registered Democrats, was selected at random by Verasight, with interviews conducted in English and Spanish, and includes an oversample of Hispanic voters. The modeled error estimate for the full sample is plus or minus 2.6%.

The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 299 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the modeled error estimate is plus or minus 3.7%.