House Democrat Katie Porter Skewered For Claiming Her Election Was ‘Rigged’

Jamie FreveleMar 7th, 2024, 12:01 pm
 
Katie Porter waving to supporters on Super Tuesday

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) was one of the candidates running for the Senate seat vacated by the late Dianne Feinstein, but she lost the jungle primary to fellow House Democrat from California Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican candidate Steve Garvey. After it was all over, she blamed a “rigged” election for her loss — because her opponents ran attack ads against her.

After her initial comment, Porter put out a statement doubling down that the election was “rigged,” but tried to clarify she was contesting the vote count:

“Rigged” means manipulated by dishonest means. A few billionaires spent $10 million+ on attack ads against me, including an ad rated “false” by an independent fact checker. That is dishonest means to manipulate an outcome. I said “rigged by billionaires” and our politics are — in fact — manipulated by big dark money. Defending democracy means calling that out. At no time have I ever undermined the vote count and election process in CA, which are beyond reproach.

If being the target of mean political ads sounds like something that usually happens during a campaign leading up to an election, it should. It’s generally considered to be part of any campaign, even attack ads — especially negative attack ads. And now, Porter is getting blowback on Twitter/X for her claims.

David Becker, the founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, explained in his own tweet:

Claims that elections were “rigged” damage our democracy, regardless of party. Every candidate knew the campaign finance and election rules well before the election, as in 2020 and 2022. And all those elections were run fairly, accurately, and securely, according to those rules.

Rick Hasen, an election law writer, director of Safeguarding Democracy Project, and a former colleague of Porter wrote:

I’m a former colleague of Katie’s at UC Irvine, and I know what she is trying to say. And I’m a big opponent of Citizens United and undisclosed spending in campaigns. (I wrote a whole book about it.)

But calling an election “rigged” in these times is irresponsible. These comments will be taken out of context to claim that Katie is as bad as Trump in saying that the election system is unfair. This will cause more people to doubt the integrity of the election process.

And others weighed in as well:

Former President Donald Trump continues to make the false claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” and “rigged,” and those lies led to thousands of people trying to stop the certification of the election on January 6, 2021.

Correction: A previous version of this story inaccurately referred to the Center for Election Innovation & Research as a “left-leaning” organization. It is nonpartisan. 

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