“I was a little disappointed that Katie Porter chose to run,” Karl Rubin, professor emeritus of mathematics, told me Monday morning in the courtyard of a community center on the campus of the University of California, Irvine.
He said Porter, currently a Democratic congressman from a suburban battleground south of Los Angeles, would be a great senator, and that either she or Adam Schiff could represent California in the Senate. He said he is excited about her decision to run, but believes in her choice to run. She left her House seat open to Republicans.
Rubin was one of 13 people I spoke with who work at the university where Porter is a tenured law professor. They are all Democrats except for one who registered as a Republican to vote against Donald Trump. They live in the same faculty housing that Porter lived in. They know her better than anyone else.
And even though there was a consensus that they respected and admired her, many said they were unhappy with her decision to give up her House seat to run for the Senate. It was especially shocking to hear that. In fact, only four of her 13 neighbors said they would vote for her.
Carol Theron, professor emeritus of criminology, said some people were “very disappointed” that Porter announced his Senate bid so soon after being re-elected to the House of Representatives. Another colleague said Porter’s ambitions got in the way of serving the district.
There was less enthusiasm among the group for Mr. Schiff, the front-runner in Tuesday’s primary, and more apparent resignation from his supporters. Neurology professor Mark Fisher, who is voting for Porter, said Schiff is “not emotionally involved” and that “he’s too intellectual, too smart.”
Physics professor Kev Abazajian was a more policy-driven opponent of Schiff, calling him “almost a conservative.” Because “he’s never seen a war he didn’t like, he’s never been a member of the Progressive Caucus, he’s been a member of the caucus” of the Blue Dog coalition. He added: “His record, other than defending democracy, which I admire, has not been great in terms of progressive values.”
But in the end, most of these voters seemed to believe that Porter’s blind ambition would trump Schiff’s bland ambition.