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Katherine Moore Porter (born January 3, 1974) is an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. representative from California from 2019 to 2025. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Porter graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School and has taught law at several universities, including the University of California, Irvine, the William S. Boyd School of Law, and the University of Iowa. In 2018, she was elected to Congress as part of a Democratic wave in Orange County, flipping the 45th district. In 2022, after redistricting, she was reelected in the 47th congressional district. In the House, she was deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and received media attention for her questioning during congressional hearings.
In 2023, Porter announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, forgoing reelection to the House of Representatives. She was defeated after failing to advance from the nonpartisan primary won by Adam Schiff and Steve Garvey. She is a candidate for governor of California in the 2026 election.
After graduating from Phillips Academy, Porter attended Yale University, where she majored in American studies, graduating in 1996. Her undergraduate thesis was titled The Effects of Corporate Farming on Rural Community. She was a member of Calhoun College (now Grace Hopper College) at Yale. Porter also interned for Chuck Grassley during this time.
Porter later attended Harvard Law School, where she was the notes editor for the Harvard Women's Law Journal and a member of the Board of Student Advisers. She studied under bankruptcy law professor and future U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren, and graduated magna cum laude with her Juris Doctor in 2001.
Porter was an associate professor of law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Law. In 2005, she joined the faculty of the University of Iowa College of Law as an associate professor, becoming a full professor there in 2011. Also in 2011, she became a tenured professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
In 2008, Porter testified before the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit alongside then-Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren on a proposed Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights, which was later signed into law.
In March 2012, California attorney general Kamala Harris appointed Porter to be the state's independent monitor of banks in a nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement. As monitor, she oversaw the banks' implementation of $9.5 billion in settlement reforms for Californians. In 2015, Porter consulted for Ocwen. Porter's 2016 textbook Modern Consumer Law addresses consumer laws in light of Dodd–Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Modern Consumer Law (Aspen Casebook) (2016), Wolters Kluwer
Porter served as one of three co-chairs of Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential campaign.
Porter faced off against Walters in the general election on November 6, 2018. Walters led at the end of election night, but in the following days, as more ballots were tabulated, Porter gained votes and eventually overtook Walters. Walters alleged unsubstantiated voter fraud by Democrats, claiming they sought to "steal" her seat.
On November 15, 2018, the Associated Press called the race for Porter, marking the first Democratic victory in the district since its 1953 creation. Following her win, Porter pledged to reform campaign finance laws and highlighted her refusal of corporate PAC donations in her campaign. Porter's win contributed to a wave for Democrats in Orange County that saw them flip four seats centered in the county, resulting in Democratic control of all seven seats in the historically Republican county.
Her major opponents in the campaign were Democrat Adam Schiff, Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, and Democrat Barbara Lee, a progressive congresswoman.
During the campaign, Porter's campaign offered her extensive fundraising list of phone numbers and email addresses for sale to interested parties.
Porter failed to advance from the March 5 nonpartisan primary, finishing third; Schiff and Garvey advanced to the November general election. With at least 99% of votes counted, Porter trailed Schiff and Garvey by between 800,000 and 1.2 million votes, with Porter failing to lead in any county. The loss ensured that Porter, who did not seek reelection to her House seat, would leave Congress by January 2025.
After her loss in the primary, Porter said the election had been "rigged" against her. She claimed that the "rigging" criticism referred to Schiff's campaign and allies raising and spending $11 million in the nonpartisan primary to boost a Republican candidate and knock her out of the general election. Her use of the word "rigged" triggered backlash from some Democrats, who condemned her language for echoing former president Trump's refusal to accept his 2020 loss. Porter later expressed regret, saying, "I wish I had chosen a different word." She made clear that her assertions about the "rigging" were not related to counting of votes or the election process, which she called "beyond reproach". Porter said: "That is a dishonest means to manipulate the outcome. I said 'rigged by billionaires' and our politics are in fact manipulated by big dark money. Defending democracy means calling that out."
On October 8, 2025, Porter threatened to walk out of an interview with CBS News Sacramento Correspondent Julie Watts. After a question about what Porter would say to the Californians who voted for Donald Trump, Porter "scoffed" at Watts and grew "palpably irritated" by follow-up questions. After Watts assured Porter that other candidates had answered the question and that her interviewing was not intended to be combative, Porter threatened to walk out of the interview. When Watts asked if Porter intended to continue the interview, Porter replied: "Nope, not like this I'm not. Not with seven follow-ups to every question you ask," adding that she didn't care that the other candidates had been asked the same question. Politicians on both sides of the aisle condemned Porter's behavior. Former Los Angeles Mayor and opposing candidate Antonio Villaraigosa said the incident raised questions about Porter's ability to "answer simple questions."
In January 2021, Porter was removed from the Financial Services Committee after opting to serve instead on the House Natural Resources and House Oversight committees. On the Oversight committee, Porter participated in an investigation into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)'s test standards for children's car seats and boosters side-impact.
, Porter had voted in line with Joe Biden's stated position 98.2% of the time.
At an August 24, 2020, congressional hearing, Porter questioned Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. He admitted to her that he did not know the cost of mailing a postcard or a smaller greeting card, the starting rate for U.S. Priority Mail, or how many Americans voted by mail in the 2016 elections. In a December 2020 House hearing, she questioned United States Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin over COVID-19 relief funding.
The Washington Post interviewed eight former employees on condition of anonymity about their experiences working for Porter. The staffers described her as domineering and recounted multiple examples of her mistreatment of staffers, including instances where she berated staffers until they cried. In response to the allegations that she created a toxic workplace, Porter defended herself on The View in April 2023 by comparing herself to women of color who are discriminated against.
In October 2025, a video of an online interview from July 2021 between then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Porter resurfaced. In the background, one of Porter's employees appeared and Porter shouted "Get out of my fucking shot!".
For the 117th Congress:
On January 13, 2022, Porter urged the Food and Drug Administration to end a policy that prevented sexually active gay and bisexual men from giving blood donations. In 2022, Porter supported and voted in favor for the Respect for Marriage Act.
In March 2019, Porter introduced the "Help America Run Act" (H.R.1623), a bill that would allow people running for the House or Senate to use campaign contributions to pay for healthcare premiums, elder care, child care and dependent care. The bill passed the House in October 2019 but was not taken up by the Senate.
In 2020, Porter accused UnitedHealth of "putting profits before patients and providers" during the Covid-19 pandemic. Porter sent a congressional letter to UnitedHealth Group CEO David Wichmann, accusing the healthcare provider of reducing their provider networks and decrease reimbursement rates.
In 2020, Porter voted for the Balance billing, which prohibited medical providers from billing patients for costs denied by insurance companies.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance in 2022, Porter criticized pharmaceutical companies for investing more money in stock buybacks than in research and development. She also addressed the high price of pharmaceuticals, saying, "Everybody should want us to have innovative care, but it doesn't do any good to develop those drugs if they're priced out of reach." Porter stated that "there is simply no set of facts that supports that allowing the government to negotiate drug prices would reduce innovation" and that the government should have the power to negotiate drug prices and it would help create a more competitive market.
Porter has been a supporter of the National Park Service's Every Kid Outdoors program. In 2021, Porter pushed for additional funding for the program to increase children's access to national parks. She endorsed the Biden administration's 2023 "America the Beautiful" initiative.
In September 2023, during an interview with Fox 5 San Diego, Porter stated, "California is going to need to continue to have an 'all of the above' energy approach but we're also going to need to make that transition,... And as we do, the question is can we make sure as we transition, slowly, away from fossil fuels to greener energy that we don't leave any workers behind."
In February 2024 during her Senate campaign, in a debate, Porter called for decommissioning the Diablo Canyon Power Plant.
Porter lives in a four-bedroom residence on the University of California, Irvine, campus that she purchased in 2011. UC Irvine has a faculty and staff housing community, University Hills, that was designed as "a way to compensate for high Orange County housing costs that can keep a recruit from accepting a job at the university".. Porter's residence's price was $523,000, a below-market price in an area with a median home price of $1.3 million. Porter stopped teaching in 2018 after being elected. The university then continually granted Porter no-pay leave, allowing her to keep her residence on campus during her congressional tenure. A post-marriage relationship with a live-in boyfriend ended when Porter obtained a restraining order to keep him away from Porter, her home, and her children. Katie Porter granted temporary restraining order against an ex after 'ongoing threats and harassment, Orange County Register, Kaitlin Schallhorn, Sean Emery, November 27, 2024. Retrieved December 1, 2024.
The Pew Research Center reported in 2023 that Porter is an Episcopalian.
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Categories: 1974 Births, 21st-century American Women Politicians, 21st-century California Politicians, American Episcopalians, American Women Academics, California Democrats, California Lawyers, Candidates In The 2024 United States Senate Elections, Candidates In The 2026 United States Elections, Female Members Of The United States House Of Representatives, Harvard Law School Alumni, Iowa Democrats, Left-wing Populism In The United States, Living People, Phillips Academy Alumni, Politicians From Fort Dodge, Iowa, University Of California, Irvine Faculty, University Of Iowa College Of Law Faculty, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas Faculty, Women In California Politics, Yale College Alumni
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