Sen. Elizabeth Warren has waded into California’s already noisy governor’s race, throwing her support behind Katie Porter and instantly turning up the volume on a contest still struggling to find a clear frontrunner.
Warren backs her former student
Warren anchored her endorsement in a personal history that goes back to her days in the classroom and to Porter’s record of grilling corporate power. "From the moment Katie set foot in my consumer law class, I knew that she would be a warrior for working families," Warren said. She added that "no one will stand up to Trump with more grit and determination than Katie," as reported by The Sacramento Bee.
Porter frames the pitch
Porter responded by putting the focus on moneyed interests and her promise to fight them from the governor’s office. "I’ll be a governor who is unbought, undeterred and unwilling to continue the special interest status quo," she said. Porter served six years in the U.S. House and built a national profile in hearings where she famously used a whiteboard to press corporations, per The Sacramento Bee.
Polls show a messy field
For all the fanfare around a Warren nod, the polling picture remains anything but tidy. An Emerson College Polling survey found Steve Hilton at 17 percent, Rep. Eric Swalwell at 14 percent, Chad Bianco at 14 percent and Porter at 10 percent, with 21 percent of likely voters still undecided, according to Emerson College Polling.
Outside money and Porter's recent history
Porter is jumping into the governor’s race with fresh scars from a bruising 2024 Senate primary, which she has repeatedly tied to a flood of outside ad spending. She has said groups spent more than $10 million targeting her. PolitiFact reviewed Porter’s statements and the underlying federal spending records and found that the $10 million-plus figure is supported by outside-spending trackers, according to PolitiFact.
What comes next
The clock is already ticking. Candidate filing is still open, but it is scheduled to close on March 6, 2026, ahead of the June 2 primary, according to county election calendars. The March filing deadline and June primary date appear on county election pages such as the San Bernardino County Registrar's calendar, which tracks the statewide schedule and the deadlines that will determine how quickly campaigns must turn high-profile endorsements into staff, donors and on-the-ground momentum, per San Bernardino County Registrar.
For Porter, Warren’s backing provides a marquee national champion and a fresh fundraising storyline. For everyone else in the race, it is another reminder that this contest is very much in flux, with endorsements, outside money and a large bloc of undecided voters all poised to keep the field unsettled in the weeks ahead.
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