“They were prepared, they were informed and they were pretty used to dealing with being in rooms with a bunch of old guys who felt like they could push women around,” Robbins-Roth said.
But she said her vote wasn’t set in stone. Swalwell had caught her eye when he served as a House manager during the second impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
“He was one of the folks I was so impressed with,” Robbins-Roth said. “I was just kind of bummed that he turned out to be one more guy who let the power of his situation determine how he was going to behave towards other people.”
“Honestly, I’m back at Katie Porter,” she said.
In the immediate aftermath of Swalwell’s exit from the race, the Porter and Steyer campaigns each pointed to recent polling to argue that their candidate was best positioned to benefit from Swalwell’s downfall.
A March survey from UC Berkeley’s Jack Citrin Center and Politico found 39% of Swalwell voters picking Porter as their second choice, and 15% preferring Steyer. An April poll by Global Strategy Group for the Steyer campaign found Swalwell supporters more closely divided on their second choice, with 31% backing Porter and 25% supporting Steyer.
Shekhar Sakhalkar, of San José, said he is backing Steyer because of the billionaire investor’s early support for impeaching Donald Trump. Steyer launched the “Need to Impeach” campaign to remove Trump from office less than a year into his first term.
“I thought that he was trying to do the right thing in calling out the right problems,” Sakhalkar said. “So I was impressed with that part from the beginning.”
Berkeley resident Susanna Porte also likes Steyer, along with former state Controller Betty Yee. She said both have focused on her top issues of the environment and economic justice and have “decided to challenge PG&E.”
There are currently seven notable Democrats in the race, including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. Porte said a smaller field could help voters focus on the strongest candidates, but she doesn’t want to see Yee exit just yet — despite Yee polling in the low single-digits.
“Since she does seem to represent a lot of my views, I hope she’ll stay in, and perhaps someone else will jump out of the race,” Porte said.
But the seven notable Democrats left in the race all see an opportunity to make inroads with Bay Area voters now that Swalwell is out of the campaign. On Wednesday, Mahan launched a $3 million ad buy that included broadcast television in the region — while Becerra touted an influx of first-time donors.
Coakley said he’s taking his support back to Becerra — and has started to engage more deeply in the race since the Swalwell scandal broke.
“I’ve gone to the [candidate] websites,” he said. “I hadn’t really done that before all this had happened.”
