Katie Porter Battles For Survival In California Senate Race

WASHINGTON — Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) is taking hits from all sides in California’s increasingly contentious Senate race, facing an onslaught of TV advertising backed by wealthy donors who are seeking to ensure that she doesn’t qualify for the top-two runoff election against front-runner Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) in next month’s primary.

On Monday, a super PAC funded by cryptocurrency billionaires unleashed a multimillion-dollar barrage of advertising against Porter, accusing the progressive congresswoman of accepting contributions from the pharmaceutical and banking industries she is known to regularly lambaste in Congress. The group, called Fairshake, criticized Porter and said she “says one thing and does another.”

Porter has made fighting the influence of dark money a central part of her pitch in California’s all-party “jungle primary” for Senate. She’s sworn off accepting donations from corporate political action committees, advocated for getting rid of earmarks, and proposed legislation banning government officials from owning financial stocks. Last week, Porter joined other Democratic lawmakers in expressing concerns to federal regulators about the effects of cryptocurrency mining on climate change, which may have provoked the industry’s ire.

“Californians aren’t fooled,” Porter wrote Tuesday in response to the super PAC advertising. “Shadowy crypto billionaires don’t want a strong voice for consumers in the Senate. They fear people who call out corporate greed, so they’re spending millions on dishonest dark-money ads against me.”

She added, “Their ads will never stop me from fighting for YOU.”

Meanwhile, California’s notoriously expensive airwaves are also being flooded by ads from Schiff and a super