Why Has Eric Swalwell Not Dropped Out Yet?
By: Sam Massey
For the past week or so, there had been word floating around that a major story on Rep. Eric Swalwell would be coming out. We had no idea how bad it actually was going to be. On Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle published a detailed account from a former staffer of Rep. Eric Swalwell alleging that he sexually assaulted her twice, once in 2019 when she was 21 years old and working in his district office, and again in April 2024 at a New York gala where she says she blacked out and woke up alone in his hotel room, bleeding and bruised.
Within hours, CNN published a separate investigation featuring three additional women, including one who described ending up intoxicated in his hotel room with no memory of how she got there, and two others who said Swalwell sent them unsolicited photos of his genitals over Snapchat. The former staffer told the Chronicle that she texted a friend three days after the 2024 incident: “I woke up once during it and even told him to stop at one point.” She obtained STD and pregnancy tests the following week. Her then-boyfriend, her mother, and multiple friends all corroborated her account to both outlets.
Swalwell’s response was to deny everything, in a video response calling the allegations “absolutely false”, before apologizing to his wife and to his supporters. He’d send a cease-and-desist letter to two of the women the same day CNN contacted his campaign for comment.
The political fallout was practically immediate and total. Both chairs of Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign, Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Adam Gray, resigned their roles within hours and called on him to drop out. Nancy Pelosi, who had helped build Swalwell’s career across seven terms in Congress, issued a statement saying the matter must be investigated “with full transparency and accountability” outside a campaign.
Sens. Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego also both withdrew their support, even after Gallego would defend Swalwell through rumors of promiscuity just this past week. Schiff wrote that the woman “was brave to come forward, and we should take her story seriously.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark, and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar issued a joint letter calling the allegations “incredibly disturbing” and pressing Swalwell to end his bid.
Outside of direct officeholders, organizations like the California Teachers Association have also dropped its endorsement. SEIU California suspended their campaign activities. And, more than a dozen House colleagues who had backed him called for him to leave the race. A pro-Swalwell expenditure committee announced it was shutting down entirely. Several senior campaign staffers quit before the Chronicle story even published.
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The pattern described across all four women’s allegations are remarkably consistent and specific. Swalwell, according to the accounts, identified young women who were professionally ambitious and politically idealistic, made them feel uniquely seen and valued, moved conversations to Snapchat where messages automatically disappear, escalated to sexual content, and then leveraged alcohol and his position of power to push further.
One of the staffers described two distinct versions of him, the Snapchat Swalwell and the boss Swalwell, existing in parallel while she tried to compartmentalize what was happening to her. What ties the accounts together is not just the behavior but the actual aftermath of each correspondence: the Snapchat messages telling women not to tell anyone, the professional references offered as a form of continued control, the women staying in contact out of fear of what it would mean for their careers if they did not. The former staffer put it plainly: “He was so confident that I would stay silent that he wasn’t scared.”
This is, to be clear, a man who built his national profile on being one of the loudest Democratic voices against Donald Trump’s alleged mistreatment of women, ran a short-lived presidential campaign in the 2020 Democratic Primary, and wrote in his own book that Trump was “a pig” for bragging about grabbing women without consent. He is now facing four corroborated accounts of sexual misconduct including two allegations of rape, and has responded by threatening to sue the women speaking out against him. The question of why he has not dropped out answers itself. Maybe it is that same belief that allowed this behavior to continue for years, that he was powerful enough that no one would believe the women, that silence could be managed, that his position protected him, is the same belief keeping him in the race today.
The race that Swalwell is seemingly refusing to leave is one that Democrats can no longer afford to treat as stable, either. The last major poll, conducted April 1 to 6 by David Binder Research for SEIU California, showed Swalwell at 18%, trailing Steve Hilton at 22% but leading the rest of the field. Steyer sat at 12%, Porter at 11%, with Bianco at 13% and the remainder of the crowded field in single digits. The poll was taken before the Chronicle and CNN investigations dropped, meaning every number in it is already functionally obsolete. The question now is where Swalwell’s 18% goes, and whether it goes in time.
The most compelling scenario for Democrats is consolidation around Tom Steyer. The billionaire progressive has the large financial resources to absorb a surge in attention, has been steadily building his campaign infrastructure across the state, and unlike Porter carries no significant controversy into the post-Swalwell vacuum. Porter, for her part, has her own baggage. Viral videos from late 2025 showed her snapping at a reporter during an interview (“I don’t want all this on camera”) and at a staffer to “get out of my f***ing shot,” episodes she later apologized for and acknowledged she could have “handled better.” Steyer, by contrast, has been quiet, disciplined, and is positioned just close enough to the front of the pack that a few percentage points of movement could alter the entire shape of November.
The structural problem for California Democrats is not just Swalwell. It is the primary format itself, and the lack of consolidation among Democrats. With the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election regardless of party, the crowded Democratic field has always risked splitting the vote badly enough to allow both Hilton and Bianco through, locking Democrats out of November entirely. Sacramento data analyst Paul Mitchell, who has been running daily simulations of the race, noted after Friday’s news that a Swalwell exit increases the likelihood of a Steyer vs. Porter general election rather than a Republican sweep. That is the best case. But it requires Swalwell to actually leave, his voters to consolidate rather than scatter, and enough time before ballots are cast for the field to reshape itself around a new center of gravity. None of those things are guaranteed. One of them, at least as of this morning, has not happened at all.
Check out Gambit Forecaster’s most recent election forecast and California’s State Watch page.