From left: Antonio Villaraigosa, Katie Porter, Tom Steyer and Steve Hilton participate in a California gubernatorial debate hosted by CNN at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park on Tuesday night. 

As Katie Porter watches the time left on the shot clock in the 2026 governor’s race dwindle, there are a few things she wants you, the voters, to know.

“I think this is a moment for change, and electing California’s first noncorporate candidate and first woman is how you’re gonna get change,” she told me during a phone interview as she was en route to Tuesday’s debate on CNN. 

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Porter knows full well that if she’s going to break through to secure a top-two finish in the gubernatorial primary and make history as the first female governor of the Golden State, she’s going to make like Caitlin Clark and start hitting some threes. 

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“I’m the only candidate talking about childcare,” she told me when I asked what being the only woman candidate in the field brings to the race. “In executive conditions, women will produce better outcomes, they’re more collaborative, they’re more focused on ideas, they lead more from … principles.”

Those points are well taken, yet Porter’s momentum in the race appeared to stall months ago, thanks to the release of a 2021 video shot in her kitchen that showed her telling an aide to “get out of my f—ing........

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