A political ad meant to rehabilitate Katie Porter’s image landed with a thud this week, sending California’s Democratic gubernatorial hopeful further into a spiral she may not recover from before primary day.
Porter, a former congresswoman now running for governor, released a 30-second spot that gambled on self-deprecating humor — specifically, a winking reference to one of the most damaging moments of her political career.
The ad closed with Porter glancing toward a group of roughly two dozen sign-holding extras and quipping, “Now, could you guys please get out of my shot?” The crowd laughed on cue. Voters on X did not.
“And this … might be the worst political ad of all-time,” one user wrote. “I’d vote for Bin Laden over this woman.” Another added, “I laughed so hard … this is one of the worst campaign ads I’ve ever seen.”
The joke was a callback to a video Politico obtained in October 2025, capturing Porter during the July 2021 taping of a webinar alongside then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
When a staffer briefly appeared in the frame and attempted to offer a correction, Porter erupted. “Get out of my f***ing shot!” she said. “You also were in my shot before that. Stay out of my shot.”
That video detonated publicly just one day after a separate clip went viral — this one showing Porter threatening to walk out during a sit-down interview with a California CBS News reporter.
Taken together, the two recordings painted a portrait of a candidate with a combustible temperament.
The temperament question did not begin there. Porter’s former husband, Matt Hoffman, has maintained domestic abuse allegations against her rooted in a 2013 incident.
Hoffman alleged, according to Fox News, that Porter poured hot potatoes on his head and shattered a glass in a rage, with the flying shards causing injury.
None of that history stopped Porter from casting herself in the new ad as a woman of the people. “I’m Katie Porter, and I’m not like most people who run for governor,” she told viewers. “I actually get what you’re going through.”
She described herself as a “single mom of three kids” who knows “what it’s like to push the shopping cart,” drives a minivan with “almost 200,000 miles on it,” and has “a grown kid who may soon be living on my couch.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported that as of 2022, Porter’s estimated net worth stood at $1.6 million. Her path to public life ran through Phillips Academy, one of the country’s most exclusive prep schools, then Yale University for her undergraduate degree, and finally Harvard Law School — a combined educational investment approaching $700,000.
Porter’s poll numbers tell their own story.
The RealClearPolling aggregate of surveys places her fifth in California’s open gubernatorial primary, with an average of nine percent support — a figure that has not meaningfully moved despite weeks of campaigning.
The ad arrived during a period of broader turbulence in the Democratic primary field. Fellow candidate and former Representative Eric Swalwell has faced a sexual assault scandal of his own.
Rather than benefiting from the controversy surrounding a rival, Porter moved to capitalize on it publicly — a decision that earned her a Community Notes correction on X, given the unresolved allegations she herself faces.
The attempt backfired. Critics pointed to the parallel between Porter’s public posture toward Swalwell’s accusers and the accusations lodged against Porter by her former husband.
Meanwhile, the campaign ad that was supposed to flip the narrative delivered the opposite result.
Instead of softening the image of a candidate already defined by her on-camera outbursts, it reminded voters of exactly why they had concerns about her in the first place.
At nine percent in a five-way field, Porter is running out of moments to turn it around.
