There was a moment in the California Senate debate where Rep. Katie Porter taunted former baseball player Steve Garvey with, “once a dodger, always a dodger.”

It was a perfectly good line that helped cost her an election and her political career.

Rep. Porter’s problem was that she was a bad person who had good lines. For the right candidate, a good line highlights their strength and the weaknesses of their opponents. But for a bad candidate, the good lines are their weakness.

Katie Porter had spent her career developing a persona that only the 2% of perpetually online Twitter users could like. A DMV clerk who trolls social media is not a winning personality. Like AOC, Porter won over a small base of online lefties looking for snark and obnoxious behavior, but alienated everyone else. And it showed.

After her loss, Porter and her defenders have offered every possible excuse. She was facing “lies” and “billionaires”. Rep. Adam Schiff had pursued a ‘Garvey strategy’ of running against Steve Garvey instead of her. But the idea that Republicans only voted for Garvey because Schiff ran MAGA attack ads against him is dubious. Garvey is popular and likable. And Katie Porter isn’t.

The debate didn’t do her in, but it highlighted the massive likability gap between Garvey and her.

Likability isn’t everything. People vote for unlikable politicians and plenty of pleasant candidates have been left waiting at the station. Obnoxiousness can be an asset. But being unlikable is generally not an asset.

Rep. Katie Porter underestimated her unlikability and paid the price for it. Given a far left candidate, Rep. Barbara Lee, and an establishment candidate, Rep. Adam Schiff, in the race, she had no lane.

And was left with nothing.