Katie Porter is coaching potential successor to win her seat. It may not be enough.

NEWPORT BEACH, California — The contest to succeed progressive firebrand Katie Porter in Southern California was supposed to be one of the country’s marquee House races.

Instead, it isn’t even the costliest clash in Orange County, where Democrats are going all-in to flip a neighboring Republican seat.

Yet while the dollars might be flowing elsewhere, the increasingly acrimonious scramble for Porter’s coastal district is still a test of whether her party can hold on without her in historically hostile territory.

Democrats have reasons for concern: Scott Baugh, the longtime GOP operative and former state lawmaker and county party chair who narrowly lost to Porter in 2022, has effectively been running for three years. Democrats have lost ground with registered voters in the district and their candidate this year, state Sen. Dave Min, is a capable fundraiser, but nowhere near as prolific as Porter. Private polls have shown a margin-of-error race, and a public survey from late September had the Republican with a narrow advantage, though still within the margin.

“The money is a lot more even,” said Baugh, seated at the head of a long conference inside his law office in Newport Beach, where he delved into the Xs and Os of his tight race like the former Orange County GOP boss that he is. “It’s not nine-to-one like it was last time.”

Democratic leaders acknowledge Porter’s decision to step away has put her seat at further risk: “This race would be a lot easier if she had not run for Senate,” a Democrat working on House races told POLITICO. That person was granted anonymity to speak candidly about Porter.

But the outgoing congresswoman has been quite busy behind the scenes in service of Min, a one-time rival whom she defeated in the 2018 primary, helping him raise money and providing strategic advice to the fellow law professor.

“We’ve talked a lot more lately about her thoughts on the campaign, having run this race against Scott Baugh herself,” said Min, who spent his formative years on Capitol Hill as an economic and financial policy adviser to Sen. Chuck Schumer after graduating from Harvard Law School.

When POLITICO caught up with Min recently at an office park near UC Irvine, where he and Porter have been on the faculty, they had just connected by phone the night before. Porter has counseled him to stay disciplined and not to get drawn into Baugh’s persistent attacks, she said. Nor should Min get distracted by outlandish remarks from former President Donald Trump.

Porter said she told Min to instead “drive home what an effective leader he has already been,” go scorched earth on what she described as Baugh’s corruption and broadly hammer on the big picture: what’s at stake in control of Congress.

“I am deathly afraid of what happens if Donald Trump, JD Vance and people like Scott Baugh are in office,” Min said. “That, to me, is a very, very dangerous situation for the things I care about, the future I want to leave behind for my kids.”

Min would not have run for the seat had Porter not endorsed him. While he tried to avoid a bruising primary, that’s precisely what he got. But Democrats and Republicans alike who are closely watching the race now speculate that the torrent of personal attacks Min faced from his Democratic opponent, mostly over his drunk driving arrest last year, were replayed on such a loop during the spring months that they have largely run their course with voters.

Min seems intent on following Porter’s lead, though in his own, more understated way. A father of three young kids, he spoke about loving his job in Sacramento; getting dozens of bills signed into law, genuinely enjoying his colleagues and helping to bring money back to Orange County.

“Maybe one out of those things will be true in Congress,” he deadpanned.

Min wants to work on issues around housing affordability, climate change, gun safety, children’s safety, women's reproductive rights and domestic violence and also potentially exercise his economic bonafides on financial regulation and the budget.

He took a page directly from Porter, warning about Republicans taking over in Washington and painting Baugh as a nightmare for House ethics investigators by pointing to his decadesold election law scheme in which he faced felony charges before agreeing to a big civil fine.

“This guy is as lawless as they get,” said Min, referring to Baugh as a “bad guy” who “lacks character.” “He's like an onion. There’s always just more corrupt, crazy stuff happening.”

Baugh, meanwhile, tried to exude confidence. He took some hard shots at Min while pushing back on the character attacks and Democrats’ efforts to cast him as a hardcore MAGA devotee, citing Trump’s recent endorsement of him. Baugh portrayed himself as an affable, independent thinker from an earlier era of GOP politics.

“I get blamed for Jan. 6. I was nowhere near the [U.S.] Capitol on Jan. 6. It’s the same negativity with him as I saw with her,” Baugh said of Min and Porter.

“They’ve lost on the crime issue, they’ve lost on the inflation issue and they’ve lost on the border issue,” he added. “When you lose on all the major issues that people care about, you’ve only got one thing left, and that is to go negative with character assassinations on your opponent. And that's what they’re doing now.”

Almost unprompted, and within five minutes of sitting down in his sparsely decorated office, Baugh accused Democrats of lying about his abortion record when they pointed to reports stating he voiced support for federal limitations after the first trimester of pregnancy.

“They say that I want to pass a federal ban on abortion, and I don’t believe in any exceptions, which is silly,” Baugh said. “I am personally pro life, but I don't impose my personal views on the world. And I think that a federal ban would end up creating a bigger problem than it purported to solve. I don't think the federal government should be involved in it at all.”

Baugh said states are rightfully working through the implications of Roe being struck down by the Supreme Court, and noted that abortion rights are enshrined in California’s Constitution.

“The people have spoken in California, and it would be a mistake for the federal government to step in and overrule that,” he added. “So I don’t believe in a federal ban at all.”

Baugh’s political career goes back decades, and he says he’s been a “constitutional conservative” for much of his life. Baugh said he believes in “Aristotelian intellectual hospitality,” where ideas are not accepted — or rejected — based on their source and instead are evaluated “on what we know to be right and wrong.”

“I would make budget deals that made sense and we would come together with the Democrats and craft something that allowed us to move forward on governance in California,” he said of his time in Sacramento. “That's been my reputation for 30 years.”

While Baugh insists he hasn’t changed, his party has, and he would ascend to a Republican House whose members have increasingly opposed funding the war in Ukraine. Baugh signaled he’s generally supportive of providing U.S. aid, but added there’s “not sufficient accountability” for how — or where — money is spent. “I would put more brakes on that, if you will,” he said, pointing to “challenges with corruption” and other “nefarious things going on.”

Baugh rejected the notion that his stance was inconsistent with the Cold War-era Republicanism defined by Ronald Reagan, contending the Soviet Union represented a far graver threat to the world than Russia does.

“The threat of the Cold War was more palpable, more real at that point in time. Right now, you have a conflict that's mostly regional. It's not worldwide,” he said.

“I think we need to be cautious and prudent and and fiscally responsible and measured in how we go about helping Ukraine,” he concluded. “Because, listen, let’s be clear, [Vladimir] Putin is not a good man. He’s a tyrant, right? And if you let him have his way, he may go a lot further. And so it’s important that we make sure that doesn’t happen, and it’s also important that we send a message to the rest of our allies that we will still stand against tyranny.”

Asked about helping Israel, he said, “I don't have that same concern” as he does with Ukraine.

Baugh spoke about worries over America’s rising debt and said he’s for free trade but voiced concerns about countries that don’t respect human rights and are flooding the U.S. with fentanyl, an issue that hits home for him. He has centered his campaign around crime, rising prices and stemming the flow of illegal crossings at the southern border, and moved into an offensive position on the three issues.

He took digs at Min for supporting a raft of criminal justice related bills, including relaxing cash bail, and accused him of trying to sabotage a tough-on-crime ballot measure that’s expected to pass easily on Election Day.

“Dave Min has moved [right] in order to fool the voters,” Baugh said.

“They play the game of progressive politics until the voters figure it out. And then all of a sudden, when it comes time [for] election season, they change their tune to get elected,” he said. “Once elected, they go right back to their progressive policies.”

Min countered that he’s supported by numerous law enforcement groups. He backs the ballot measure, known as Proposition 36, and confronted Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom over the issue in a virtual meeting with lawmakers this summer. Min also authored a law that was part of the Newsom-backed package aimed at preventing retail theft.

“He’s trying to sell a message that is bullshit, basically,” Min said, pivoting from crime to immigration. “I’ve never called for open borders. I think the United States should enforce its borders, just like every other country does.”

But Baugh insists Min’s for lax border restrictions, that his retail-theft bill was window dressing and that he’ll do little to break with his party on broader issues around crime and immigration.

“It annoys me because there's fraud being perpetrated on the people of California and in this district. They bring all these soft on crime policies, crime erupts, and all of a sudden they pretend they're tough on crime, and they're not,” Baugh said. “All of a sudden they’re finding religion and they’re changing their tune. You give them power, they'll open the borders.”

Another favorite topic of his is a ban on members of Congress from trading stocks.

Min, for his part, kept circling back to issues of temperament, character and, to borrow from the Porter playbook, Baugh’s alleged corruption and tying it to Trump’s own legal woes.

Min has resurfaced the legal charges Democrats have hit Baugh on over the years, including the Orange County misconduct case that started in 1995 and concluded four years later when he agreed to the civil fines of nearly $50,000 for nine violations of the state’s Political Reform Act. Min also alluded to scandals that touched the Baugh-led Orange County Republican Party.

“You compare my record in the state legislature, where I have a strong record of being pro-public safety, including bringing a lot of money back here for wildfire safety, for police, supporting a strong public safety agenda, versus Scott Baugh’s time in the Assembly where he was indicted, again, for 22 counts of campaign finance fraud,” Min said.

He also urged voters to examine the candidates’ time outside office.

“I was prosecuting Wall Street fraud. I was upholding the rule of law, trying to serve the public good. I turned down higher-paying jobs to try to make a difference in this country, in my communities,” he said. “Scott Baugh spent his career as a lobbyist enriching himself.

“Katie Porter made that case a couple years ago. We’re making that case again.”