Katie Porter is popping the web page on politics after a bruising California governor marketing campaign that led to defeat and revived years of criticism over her therapy of employees.
The previous California congresswoman introduced Wednesday that she’s stepping away from public life, telling followers on Instagram: “I’m carried out for now with politics and campaigning.”
Porter, who didn’t advance out of California’s current gubernatorial main, additionally revealed she’s rebranding her Instagram account as @katieporterturnsthepage, a nod to her love of books.
The self-described “quick reader” stated the account will now concentrate on studying as a substitute of politics.
The announcement caps a turbulent last chapter for the Democrat, whose gubernatorial marketing campaign was more and more overshadowed by renewed scrutiny of her temperament and administration type.
Porter completed fifth in California’s crowded top-two main, receiving 403,908 votes, or 4.4% of the vote, in accordance with unofficial California Secretary of State returns.
Below California’s main system, solely the highest two finishers advance to the final election, leaving Porter out of the November race regardless of showing on a poll that included 61 candidates.
As her marketing campaign struggled, an unedited 2021 video resurfaced in late 2025 displaying Porter berating a staffer who unintentionally walked into the background throughout a digital assembly with Vitality Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
“Get out of my f-ing shot!” Porter shouted.
The video rapidly went viral and reignited longstanding questions on her therapy of aides.
Porter later publicly and privately apologized for the outburst, addressing it at a Sacramento public discussion board and once more throughout a televised gubernatorial debate.
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The controversy was adopted by one other viral second when Porter grew visibly irritated throughout an interview with a CBS Sacramento investigative reporter, scolding the journalist and threatening to finish the interview as a result of she didn’t need to have an “sad expertise.”
These incidents added gas to complaints that had adopted Porter all through her time in Congress.
Capitol Hill information persistently confirmed she had one of many highest employees turnover charges within the Home, whereas leaked 2022 textual content messages revealed she harshly reprimanded a fellow over issues the particular person had uncovered her to COVID-19.
Porter represented California within the Home from 2019 by 2025 and stays a full-time regulation professor at UC Irvine, the place she first joined the school in 2011.
Whether or not her political retirement is everlasting stays an open query.
However after a failed bid for greater workplace and a sequence of headline-grabbing controversies, Porter says she’s placing campaigns behind her, at the very least for now.
