Meet the Candidates for Governor: Katie Porter

The race for Governor of California is only getting more and more exciting! This year will be filled with many more surprises to come, so stay up-to-date by attending Manny's series of town halls with each candidate, moderated by Politico Reporter Dustin Gardiner.

Next up is Katie Porter, Former United States Representative from Southern California!

See below for free tickets!

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Katie Porter served as U.S. Representative from California from 2019 to 2025.

After the 2016 election, Katie launched her first-ever campaign, motivated out of concern about Donald Trump. Two years later, she flipped the congressional seat from red to blue and became the first Democrat to represent the area in 75 years. Katie served three terms in Congress, receiving national attention for taking on Trump administration officials who failed Californians. In March 2020, when we had few tools to address the pandemic, her dogged oversight of Trump’s CDC Director, with her whiteboard, secured free COVID testing for every American.

In Congress, Katie passed bills to stop corporate cheaters and strengthen disaster response. She wrote new laws that crack down on health insurers wrongfully denying care and save patients thousands of dollars from Big Pharma’s unreasonable price hikes. She also passed legislation that would raise firefighter pay and strengthen mental health treatment for first responders.

This year, Katie returned to teaching at the UC Irvine School of Law, where she is training a new generation of consumer advocates. As a UCI professor before going to Congress, Katie was appointed by then-Attorney General Kamala Harris to be California’s independent monitor of banks in a nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement, helping families get back on their feet in the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis.

Katie is a single mom of three kids. She lives with her family in Irvine, California.

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Dustin Gardiner is a reporter at Politico that has covered state and national politics from California, Arizona and D.C. for 16 years.

He previously covered state politics for the San Francisco Chronicle, including from Washington where he tracked California's congressional delegation during President Donald Trump's first impeachment. Prior to moving to California, he spent a decade with The Arizona Republic, where he covered state and city politics.

Dustin’s awards include first place honors in both the newsletter category and for daily Capitol beat coverage from the Sacramento Press Club in 2024 and 2023, and the “story of the year” award from the Arizona Newspapers Association in 2017.

Dustin lives in San Francisco and is a member of NLGJA, the association of LGBTQ journalists.

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