Congressman Eric Swwell withdraws his bid for governor of California

from Jeanne KuangCalMatters

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Congressman Eric Swwell suspended his campaign for governor of California on Sunday, days after two news outlets published explosive allegations of sexual assault and misconduct by four women, including a former staffer.

Swalwell’s campaign collapsed on Friday shortly after the first report the san francisco chroniclewhich brought dozens of supporters and employees to withdraw their support for him. Major unions and congressional candidates withdrew their support.

He continued to deny the allegations in a post announcing his withdrawal from the race on social media on Sunday.

“To my family, team, friends and supporters, I am deeply sorry for the errors of judgment I have made in my past. I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made – but this is my fight, not a campaign,” he wrote.

Because he is leaving the race after the state’s deadline to file or withdraw from the race, his name will still appear on the June 2 primary ballot.

Swalwell, who has represented parts of the East Bay in Congress since 2013, jumped into the governor’s race in November.

In a wide-open field, he had better recognition among liberal voters than many other candidates from his frequent appearances on cable news and his role as the chairman of Trump’s second impeachment effort in 2021. He quickly rose to the top of polls among Democratic candidates and garnered the largest share of support from state Democratic delegates at its convention in February.

He has also been the center of controversy, including challenges to his residency in California and questions about who invested in his artificial intelligence campaign finance startup, which is used by some of his Democratic colleagues in Congress.

For most of the past two weeks, he’s been in a three-way tie for the Democratic lead in the race, along with Katie Porter and Tom Steyer. All three trailed the two Republican candidates, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, raising concerns among Democrats that the two Republicans could take the top two seats in the June 2 primary, advance to November and lock Democrats out of the seat.

Swawell’s withdrawal could allow another Democrat to come out on top if most of his supporters turn to the same candidate.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.