A veteran California political journalist who has covered Rep. Eric Swalwell since his days on the Dublin City Council says the congressman's alleged behavior toward women "was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party", and has been since shortly after Swalwell entered Congress in 2013.
Steve Tavares, an East Bay political journalist and author, made the claim in a social media post on Saturday, as Swalwell faces mounting calls to resign from Congress and abandon his campaign for California governor. The allegations at the center of the controversy involve sexual assault claims raised by former staffers.
The timing matters. If Tavares is right that Swalwell's conduct was widely known among Democratic officials for more than a decade, it raises a pointed question: Who in the party's local infrastructure chose to look the other way, and why?
A reporter who says he tried to break the story
Tavares did not position himself as a bystander. In his Saturday post, as Fox News Digital reported, he described years of frustrated attempts to bring the allegations to light.
"I tried repeatedly to get the stories out. I can't force women to speak out, and when they chose not to, I didn't push. I also knew that Swalwell was known to threaten litigation."
That combination, reluctant accusers and a litigious target, is familiar to anyone who has watched powerful men avoid accountability. Tavares framed his long track record covering Swalwell as the basis for his credibility.
"I've covered Eric Swalwell since he was a member of the Dublin City Council. Don't get it twisted. Nobody has been more critical of Swalwell over the years."
Tavares' claims remain his own assertions. Fox News Digital reached out to Swalwell's office and campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the California Democratic Party, but none responded immediately.
Swalwell's thin support at home
Separate from the Saturday social media post, Tavares published an April 6 edition of his "East Bay Insiders" newsletter that painted a broader picture of Swalwell's political weakness in his own backyard. The congressman built a national media profile largely on his opposition to President Trump, but Tavares argued that brand has not translated into local loyalty.
"For a candidate who could plausibly contend for governor of the nation's most powerful state, Eric Swalwell's base of support at home is strikingly thin."
Tavares pointed to two categories of problems: ideological and personal. On ideology, he wrote that many Democratic insiders in Alameda County do not consider Swalwell a reliable progressive, a remarkable assessment for a congressman who spent years as one of the most visible anti-Trump voices in the House.
"Over time, his positions, support for law enforcement, past rhetoric on border security, and unwavering backing of Israel, have placed him out of step with the prevailing politics of the deep-blue East Bay."
That passage is revealing. In much of the country, supporting law enforcement and border security would be unremarkable. In the East Bay's progressive ecosystem, those positions apparently made Swalwell suspect. The irony is thick: a congressman who built a national brand on left-wing resistance could not satisfy the left-wing base in his own district.
Swalwell's record of deflecting scrutiny over sensitive matters is not new to close observers of his career. But the local dimension Tavares describes adds a layer that national coverage often misses.
Old grudges and fresh endorsements
The personal side of Swalwell's weakness, Tavares wrote, traces back to the early moves that launched his congressional career. Early on, Swalwell unseated two figures Tavares described as "well-regarded", Pete Stark and later Ellen Corbett. Those victories, while politically successful, left what Tavares called "lingering resentment among longtime Democratic activists."
That resentment has apparently hardened over time. Tavares also noted a perception that Swalwell has been less of a fixture in his district since buying a home in Washington, D.C., a detail that reinforces the image of a congressman more focused on cable-news green rooms than constituent service.
Recent endorsement patterns underscore the challenge. Assemblymember Mia Bonta and Rep. Ro Khanna, both prominent figures in the East Bay's Democratic firmament, backed Tom Steyer for governor rather than their nominal ally Swalwell. When your own neighbors endorse someone else, the campaign trail gets lonely fast.
Tavares summed up the strategic bind plainly:
"Taken together, Swalwell's path to higher office may depend less on consolidating his home base and more on building a coalition elsewhere, an unusual, and potentially risky, strategy for a California gubernatorial hopeful."
Running for governor without your home county behind you is not impossible, but it is the political equivalent of building a house on sand. And that was before the sexual assault allegations surfaced publicly.
Calls for resignation and expulsion
The pressure on Swalwell now extends beyond local grumbling. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, called for a motion to expel Swalwell from Congress following the allegations of misconduct and sexual assault made by a former staffer. Whether that motion gains traction remains to be seen, but the fact that it has been raised at all signals that Swalwell's troubles have entered a new phase.
Swalwell also faces calls to drop out of the California governor's race entirely. The congressman has not publicly responded to the latest round of allegations or to Tavares' claims about what local officials knew. His office, his campaign, the DNC, and the California Democratic Party all declined to comment when Fox News Digital sought responses.
The silence is notable. In Washington, silence from a politician's own party apparatus often says more than any statement could. When accountability efforts target local officials in other states, the accused at least tend to mount a defense. Swalwell's camp has offered none so far.
The broader pattern
Swalwell's controversies did not begin with these allegations. He has previously faced scrutiny over his receipt of donations from individuals and entities linked to the Chinese Communist Party, including a reported $25,000 donation from a CCP-tied lawyer. That episode raised its own set of questions about judgment and vetting that were never fully resolved.
What Tavares' account adds is the claim that Swalwell's conduct toward women was not a hidden problem but a known one, known, he says, to the very party officials who continued to support Swalwell's rise. If true, the failure belongs not just to one congressman but to an entire local political infrastructure that chose convenience over accountability.
That pattern, powerful institutions looking away when the accused is politically useful, is not unique to any party. But Democrats have spent years positioning themselves as the party that believes women and holds men in power accountable. The question Tavares' account raises is whether that standard applied in Alameda County, or whether it had an asterisk next to it.
The broader tensions between Democratic leadership and the consequences of their choices continue to play out across multiple fronts. Swalwell's situation is one more data point in a growing file.
What remains unanswered
Several critical questions hang over this story. Which former staffers raised the sexual assault allegations, and what specifically do they allege? Will any of the local officials Tavares references confirm that they knew about Swalwell's behavior? Will the Alameda County Democratic Party address whether it received complaints or warnings?
And perhaps most importantly: Will any Democratic leader in California call on Swalwell to step aside, or will the party's institutional silence continue?
Tavares, for his part, has staked his credibility on a clear claim: the behavior was known, and he tried to report it. The women he spoke with chose not to go public, and Swalwell's reputation for threatening litigation kept the lid on. Whether that lid stays off now depends on whether the institutions that Tavares says looked the other way finally decide to look.
Accountability that arrives a decade late is better than none at all. But the people who deserve answers most, the former staffers who say they were harmed, should not have had to wait this long for anyone to listen.
