Outspoken Rep. Katie Porter is cleaning up after a controversial comment she made in the aftermath of her California Senate primary against fellow Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey.

Days after the March 5 primary, when it became clear she would not win, Porter tweeted a thank you to her supporters, accompanied by a dig.

“Thanks to you, we scared the establishment with a 3-to-1 TV spending deficit and an onslaught of billionaires spending millions to rig this election,” Porter said. wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Democratic leaders denounced Porter’s comments as echoing the rhetoric of former President Trump, the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, who has falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by President Biden.

Some of the harshest criticism came from California Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat and the state’s former chief elections official. Normally reserved,

Padilla said

POLITICS

:

“I can assure you of the integrity of the election and the results. The heap

–

on sequel and some

saying said

this could reduce her chances of running for office in the future.

In a broadcast on Pod Save America, Porter sounded somewhat chastened, but remained defiant about a bigger performance.

“Obviously, I wish I had chosen a different word because what happened with the controversy was it took away two very important truths,” the Irvine congressman told the hosts.

Porter said she thought “California election officials are doing a great job” and that she had “tremendous respect for them.”

Her gem

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culpa ended there and she went on to say that a bigger point had been lost in the

commotion

that passed

the impact of

money in politics. In the final month of the election, Porter bashed a network of tech investors and cryptocurrency interests, who poured $10 million into advertising the Irvine congressman.

She also blasted Schiff for spending tens of millions of dollars in campaign funds to raise awareness

by

Garvey, a former baseball player, saying “he was too conservative for California.” These ads allowed the former Padres and Dodgers baseball star to consolidate support among the smaller but still significant number of Republicans in the state, which proved to be enough for him to defeat prominent Democratic rivals like Porter and Rep. Barbara Lee to dethrone. Oakland.

“Big money influences our elections. The outcomes are manipulated and distorted,” Porter said.

“When people come in at the last minute and spend millions and millions of dollars, and that money isn’t announced until after the election. So people don’t know about it.”

An official from Coinbase, which has the highest trading volume of any cryptocurrency exchange in the US, previously told The Times

she

support candidates who “see crypto as an opportunity to make real difference, change, protect jobs and protect national security.

Porter complained on the podcast that her views on currency exchanges and blockchain technologies were not discussed more openly, even though these groups viewed her as skeptical of the industry. A voter guide prepared by Stand With Crypto, a 501(c)4 political nonprofit that is not required to disclose its donors, described Schiff as strongly in favor of crypto and Porter as strongly opposed.

Porter’s low marks were based on a tweet about it shadowy crypto billionaires,” a letter she signed questioned the Texas Power Grid Authority’s practice of paying crypto mining companies to turn off power during peak periods, and its opposition to a bill favored by the cryptocurrency industry.

“20% of Americans may own some form of crypto assets. Congress is struggling with this. But true to its motto of solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow, Congress has done nothing about it yet,” Porter told the podcast hosts. .

“So what’s unfortunate and what I think when I say this race was rigged by these expenditures is that it was not expenditures to create a debate on policy issues.”

Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.