Till Katie Porter received her congressional seat in 2018, being a Democrat in Orange County was like rooting for the Angels: Somebody has to do it, amirite?
Republicans had held a majority of my dwelling county’s legislative, congressional and supervisorial seats for many years. They maintained a sturdy ecosystem of candidates, funneling activists onto college boards and celebration committees to find out how politics works earlier than transferring on to increased workplaces. The GOP manner took Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to the White Home, the latter infamously saying, “Orange County is the place the nice Republicans go earlier than they die.”
Democrats did maintain energy in Santa Ana, Irvine and different smaller cities however in any other case largely went by way of elections just like the butt of a joke in a Monty Python skit. Their luck started to shift in 2016, when Hillary Clinton received Orange County within the presidential election — the primary Democrat to take action since FDR through the Nice Melancholy.
However there was no firebrand chief to make native liberals dream of a bluer Orange County. The quintessential Democrat remained Loretta Sanchez, a Republican-turned-Democrat who made O.C. historical past in 1996 as the primary Latino to win a congressional race, then went on to squander that second with an undistinguished 20-year profession that led to embarrassment when Kamala Harris obliterated her in a 2016 U.S. Senate race.
The concept that Democrats may rule Orange County was so unlikely that I joked throughout a speech on the Laguna Woods Democratic Membership simply earlier than the 2018 midterm elections that I might register with the celebration for the primary time in the event that they have been capable of get a majority of the congressional seats that yr. Issues weren’t wanting good for them. Of the Democratic congressmembers whose seats have been largely in O.C., solely incumbents Lou Correa and Alan Lowenthal had received their primaries.
I used to be proved flawed — and stay a Democrat right this moment. All of O.C.’s congressional seats went Democrat in 2018 for the primary time ever. Main this cost was Porter, the kind of Dem that O.C. had not often seen.
Katie Porter talks to her son, Paul Hoffman, within the kitchen of their dwelling in 2019.
(Mark Boster / For the Occasions)
The Iowa native and UC Irvine legislation professor was dynamic, humorous, knew methods to struggle and by no means apologized for her progressive beliefs. Orange County hadn’t seen a Democrat like her since Nativo Lopez, a Chicano activist turned Santa Ana Unified college board member who delighted in antagonizing Democrats and Republicans alike within the early 2000s. Porter, who beat incumbent Mimi Walters in an upset, rapidly earned a nationwide status for her fierce interrogations of unhealthy hombres throughout congressional hearings, continuously utilizing a whiteboard to clarify arcane ideas in a manner we plebes may perceive.
She represented a brand new, purple Orange County the place Democrats have been one thing nobody may’ve foreseen: They have been cool.
Democratic celebration registration surpassed that of Republicans in 2019 — a once-unthinkable achievement. That very same yr, UNITE HERE Native 11 co-president Ada Briceño took over the Democratic Celebration of Orange County and introduced within the individuals energy organizing and radicalism that native celebration leaders had lengthy shunned. Porter was a loyal soldier — she helped native candidates win by way of endorsements and made progressives within the redder components of O.C. imagine they might run and win. Democratic majorities bloomed the place it as soon as appeared unimaginable: Costa Mesa. Huntington Seaside. The Board of Supervisors.
Porter was a transformational determine I believed would maintain her seat for years and push Orange County even additional to the left. That’s why I used to be dissatisfied when she introduced final yr that she wouldn’t search reelection and would as an alternative run for U.S. Senate. Porter figured that deep blue California would embrace her far simpler than purple Orange County.
It didn’t.
Early returns from Tremendous Tuesday present Porter in third place, far behind fellow Democrat Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey. Lefties lengthy fretted that she and her fellow traveler, Rep. Barbara Lee, would cancel one another out, however their mixed vote whole wouldn’t even have put them into the overall election.
Porter’s anticipated loss comes at a nasty time for Democrats in Orange County. Since Porter and her congressional class swept O.C., Republicans have yearned for a comeback. In 2020, Younger Kim and Michelle Metal — the primary Korean American girls in Congress together with Washington state’s Marilyn Strickland — received again two seats for the Republicans. In Huntington Seaside, a MAGA-majority metropolis council is exhibiting that conspiratorial, retrograde politics can nonetheless win within the county that made it an artwork type.
The grand prize for O.C. conservatives, although, is Porter’s seat. Former county GOP chair Scott Baugh almost beat her in 2022, and he’s in first place by a large margin within the race to switch her. Democratic state senator Dave Min stands in second in early returns, and third-place finisher Joanna Weiss has already conceded defeat. If Baugh beats Min in November, Republicans could have clawed again their congressional majority and not less than partially deflated the narrative of an ascendant O.C. Democratic Celebration.
If that occurs, Porter ought to bear a number of the blame.
Rep. Katie Porter talks to media whereas her son, Luke Hoffman,18, who’s a first-time voter, casts his poll at a voting station at College Hills Neighborhood Middle in Irvine
(Ringo Chiu / For The Occasions)
I get why she ran. A U.S. Senate seat doesn’t come onto the electoral market usually. She owed it to nobody to attend. Whereas she served her constituents properly, Porter at all times struck me as the kind of expertise who didn’t wish to spend their whole profession within the proverbial minor leagues.
However typically, the large fish ought to keep within the small pond to defend the minnows from the sharks. And out of all of the years Porter ought to’ve remained in place, it was 2024.
On X this week, she thanked “each one who supported us over the previous six years,” writing, “It’s clear Californians are hungry for leaders who break the mould, can’t be purchased, and push for accountability in authorities and throughout our economic system.” Porter in any other case hasn’t made any public bulletins about what’s subsequent.
Her future is brilliant. She will at all times run for an additional workplace and even go after Baugh if he wins. The Newsom administration could be sensible to rent her, or the Biden administration if the president returns to the White Home. On the very least, Porter would make an amazing spokesperson for Toyota, whose Sienna minivan she changed into an unlikely image of suburban revolt.
Her legacy as a GOP slayer is everlasting. Her place within the Orange County historical past books is safe. I believe Porter is superior. However I’ll at all times keep in mind her as a what-if. What if, when Orange County wanted her most, Porter had run for reelection as an alternative of leaving us for the large time?
What if.
