Rep. Eric Swalwell speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel on Sept. 17. Swalwell has declared he’s running to succeed Gavin Newsom as governor.

With former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla announcing they will sit out the California governor’s race, the state’s Democratic power brokers have been shopping for an alternative candidate to former Rep. Katie Porter.

The latest Plan B contestant is the East Bay’s own Rep. Eric Swalwell.

Swalwell has represented the 14th Congressional District — which includes Dublin, Pleasanton, Hayward, Union City and Fremont — in the House for 13 years and even mounted an improbable presidential campaign in 2020 after only four terms in Congress. That bid went nowhere, but it was clear he was setting the table for something other than being a backbench House member.

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Initially, Swalwell was said to be considering a run for Alameda County District Attorney, which would have kept him closer to his young children. But with Harris and Padilla taking a pass, the relatively short commute from Dublin to Sacramento suddenly felt a lot shorter.

Porter, of course, had a bad stretch a few weeks ago when a

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