Representative Eric Swalwell at a House committee hearing in 2023. Photo / Ricky Carioti, The Washington Post
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) is suspending his campaign for California governor two days after reports that a former staffer accused him of sexual assault and multiple other women alleged sexual misconduct.
“I am suspending my campaign for Governor,” Swalwell wrote on X on Sunday evening. “To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I am deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I’ve made in my past.”
Swalwell continued to deny allegations of sexual assault against him.
“I will fight the serious, false allegations that have been made - but that’s my fight, not a campaign’s,” Swalwell wrote.
Swalwell’s abrupt exit from the California governor’s race marks a remarkable downfall for the long-time congressman, who was considered a leading candidate. The fallout from reports of sexual assault and misconduct continued as pressure mounted for Swalwell to also vacate his congressional seat.
Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, called him “unqualified and unfit to seek or hold public office in California” in a statement released after the announcement.
Several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they would support a motion to expel Swalwell from Congress, after Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) promised to force such a vote this week. Luna added she would try to pair that resolution with one that would also expel Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for having an affair with a staff member who later set herself on fire and died.
Swalwell has denied the allegations as false and suggested they are politically motivated. Gonzales dropped his bid for re-election last month after acknowledging the affair and saying he “had absolutely nothing to do with her tragic passing” but has said he will serve out the rest of his term, despite calls from GOP leaders to resign.
Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-New Mexico), Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), Ro Khanna (D-California) and Jared Huffman (D-California) were among the Democrats who publicly emerged this weekend to say they would vote to expel Swalwell along with Gonzales.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Jayapal said on NBC’s Meet the Press, adding that it was important to send a message to staffers on Capitol Hill that their bosses cannot treat them in the ways Swalwell and Gonzales were alleged to have done.
“Men in power rely on the silence of the women they have abused,” Fernández, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said in a statement.
“Both Reps. Tony Gonzales and Eric Swalwell believed it was acceptable to sexually abuse staff and still run for and serve in elected office. They clearly did not expect there would be any consequences for their actions.”
A two-thirds majority vote is required to expel a member from Congress. The possibility of losing his congressional seat adds to the remarkably swift downfall of Swalwell, who less than two days ago had been considered a leading candidate in the California governor’s race to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
In an article, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a former employee in Swalwell’s congressional office accused him of sexual assault. Hours later, CNN reported that three women alleged sexual misconduct.
Within hours, Swalwell lost his campaign chair and co-chair and the endorsements of nearly all his major Democratic supporters. His senior campaign and congressional staff issued a joint statement repudiating Swalwell’s alleged behavior, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed it had opened an investigation into a sexual assault accusation of a former staff member. On Sunday, more than 50 former Swalwell staffers issued a letter urging him to end his campaign and resign from Congress.
Ally Sammarco, now a Democratic strategist, told the Washington Post that in August 2021 she sent Swalwell a direct message on Twitter to talk about having grown up with Republican parents. Sammarco was 24 and just starting her career then, whereas Swalwell was a onetime presidential candidate with more than a million followers, so she didn’t think he would see her message.
To her surprise, the married Swalwell not only responded but also seemed eager to chat, she said. When he learned she was hoping to find a job on Capitol Hill, Swalwell offered to send her résumé around to different offices and invited her to meet his team, Sammarco recalled. He also asked to connect on Snapchat, she said.
When she showed up to his office, only Swalwell was there, she said, adding that he closed the door and they talked for about 20 minutes. After the meeting, Swalwell sent her a message on Snapchat asking if she could feel the tension in the room between them, she alleged.
Despite her unease, Sammarco said she continued talking to Swalwell because she felt she couldn’t afford to lose any professional help he could provide.
“Regardless of his weird behaviour, I felt like he could help me get what I wanted, which was a job,” she said. “At the time, I was very new in the industry ... This was a very big connection that I had just made.”
Sammarco also alleged that in October of that year, Swalwell sent her an unsolicited photo of his genitals. The following month, she saw news about the birth of Swalwell’s third child and decided to take “a huge step back” from corresponding with him. By then, she said, she had come to the realisation that he probably was not going to help her get a job and that she was no longer certain she wanted to work on the Hill. They eventually stopped texting altogether, she said.
CNN first reported Sammarco’s story. Swalwell did not respond to the Post’s request for comment on Sammarco’s allegations against him.
For years, Sammarco said she thought she was the only one who had uncomfortable interactions with Swalwell, until recent reports online that some women were about to accuse the long-time congressman of sexual misconduct.
“It was not until I saw the San Francisco Chronicle article come out, and I read the whole thing, that I knew I had to come forward, because the case was so serious, and I wanted to provide validation that this is something that could have happened,” Sammarco said, explaining why she went public.
She called it “offensive and disturbing” that Swalwell published a video saying “these allegations of sexual assault are flat false”.
Sammarco said she was no longer in possession of the Snapchat messages she alleges Swalwell sent her, but texts and Twitter DMs reviewed by the Post included calling her a “bad angel” who was tempting him at one point and his offering to introduce her to his staff who could help her professionally.
Swalwell did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations, as well as calls for him to also resign from his congressional seat, to which he was first elected in 2012.
In a video denying the allegations of sexual assault, Swalwell said he had “certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past” that were “between me and my wife”. In a social media post, Huffman, a fellow California Democrat, said Swalwell had all but admitted “a per se abuse of power” under House ethics rules, which prohibit House members from having sexual relationships with subordinates.
Cheyenne Hunt, a Democratic influencer and executive director of the youth political group Gen Z for Change, said Swalwell’s adamant denials were “far beyond the point of disqualifying”.
“It’s not enough for Swalwell to drop out of the governor’s race,” Hunt told the Post. “It’s abundantly clear at this point that allowing this man to occupy any position of power would be putting women in real danger. We must call for him to drop out and resign immediately.”
Hunt, one of the first Democratic voices to accuse Swalwell of inappropriate behaviour online, said she did so after one of her friends told her about receiving unwanted sexual attention from him when she was just starting out in politics.
After Hunt posted about her friend’s alleged experience, without naming her, many women came forward to Hunt to say they had negative experiences with Swalwell as well, she said. She worked to get some of them pro bono representation.
In addition to Swalwell and Gonzales, several lawmakers also have proposed forcing votes to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Florida) and Cory Mills (R-Florida) for different alleged ethics violations.
“Time to clean House,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) wrote on social media platform X.
The last time a member was expelled from the House was in 2023, when numerous Republican lawmakers voted with Democrats to oust former New York GOP representative George Santos. Before Santos, the chamber had taken such an action only five times in US history.
Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Dan Merica contributed to this report.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.