Who is running in 2026 to replace Newsom as California governor?

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California’s June primary election is barreling toward us, and the campaign for the state’s most prized political office is finally heating up.

Welcome to your guide to the 2026 California governor’s race.

Although there’s still time for candidates to jump in, the field is starting to jell. For the first time in a half-century, there is not a rock-solid front runner — so as the candidates jockey for the lead, expect to see a torrent of political attacks and warm-and-fuzzy campaign ads invading your mailboxes, television sets and favorite social media sites.

The race is wide open because Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is serving his second term and by law cannot run again.

With a large and diverse field of candidates vying for the state’s highest office, the winner may make history. California has never elected a woman as governor, and only once has a person of color held the office: Gov. Romualdo Pacheco, for just a few months in 1875.

Former Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris fueled speculation in early 2025 that she might jump into the race but said in July that she would not be running for governor. Democratic U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla also flirted with a run, but in November announced he planned to stay in Washington. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Los Angeles billionaire developer Rick Caruso in January also gave it a pass.

Some prominent candidates in the race already have dropped out: Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former state Senate leader Toni Atkins and businessman Stephen J. Cloobeck.

So who is actually running? Here are the declared candidates:

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Xavier Becerra

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Top job: U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services
Biggest splash: As California attorney general, sued the Trump administration roughly 120 times.
Particulars: Becerra, 68, lives in Sacramento with his wife, Dr. Carolina Reyes, and they have three adult daughters. Born in Sacramento, he is the son of Mexican immigrants: His mother was a clerical worker and his father picked vegetables, worked in construction and had other jobs. He is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: April 2025

After working for Legal Aid in Massachusetts, Becerra came back to Sacramento to work for state Sen. Art Torres. After serving in the California Assembly for a two-year term, Becerra was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992, where he served until 2017 and rose to become the highest-ranking Latino at the time. While in Congress, Becerra voted against the Iraq war and against the Defense of Marriage Act, which sought to limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

After then-state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate, Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Becerra to succeed her as California’s top law enforcement official. Despite his lengthy career in national politics, Becerra quickly became known as the top legal antagonist of the Trump administration. As the state’s attorney general, Becerra filed roughly 120 lawsuits against the federal government over issues including immigration, healthcare, the environment and civil rights.

After his election in 2020, President Biden nominated Becerra to become the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services and he took office during one of the worst health crises in a century, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Becerra has said that among the administration’s top accomplishments was getting 700 million COVID vaccination shots into the arms of Americans, and he touted the administration’s efforts to expand access to healthcare under the Affordable Care Act. Becerra also faced criticism as secretary over his handling of issues including the mpox outbreak.

A recent scandal in Sacramento involved Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California attorney general’s office and ex-chief of staff, Sean McCluskie, who, along with two high-profile Democratic political strategists, was indicted on allegations of conspiring to bill Becerra’s dormant campaign account for bogus consulting services. Becerra is not accused of wrongdoing in the case.

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Chad Bianco

(Kent Nishimura / Getty Images)

Top job: Riverside County sheriff
Biggest splash: In an Instagram post, he endorsed Donald Trump for president, playfully saying it’s time we put “a felon in the White House.”
Particulars: Bianco, 58, lives in Riverside with his wife, Denise, and has four adult children. He was born at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, and grew up in a small mining town. He’s a Republican.
Campaign launch: February 2025

Bianco was elected sheriff in 2018 after a long career at the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office and reelected in 2022. Bianco is a law-and-order conservative and strong supporter of President Trump.

As sheriff, Bianco has been a harsh critic of Newsom, Bonta and the California Legislature, especially their public safety policies. During the 2024 election, Bianco supported Proposition 36, the ballot measure approved by voters to reverse course on progressive criminal justice reform, cracking down on theft crimes and the use of the deadly drug fentanyl.

Bianco faced scrutiny after a data leak revealed that in 2014 he was a member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right, anti-government group whose members took part in the pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Bianco later said he had discontinued his membership because, like many other law enforcement officers, he felt the organization “did not offer me anything.”

In 2024, Bianco joined a coalition of sheriffs across the country who endorsed the tough stance on border security taken by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, including transporting immigrants to “sanctuary” cities across the country.

At a candidate forum in January, Bianco said politicians who support “sanctuary state” policies should be voted out of office. “I wish it was the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s — we’d take them behind the shed and beat the s— out of them,” he said.

Last year, though, Bianco announced that Riverside County deputies will not perform “any type of immigration enforcement,” saying that fear among local immigrant communities has increased due to raids ordered by the Trump administration.

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Ian Calderon

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Top job: Former Assembly majority leader
Biggest splash: In 2016, he became the youngest-serving majority leader at age 30.
Particulars: Calderon, 40, lives in Orange County with his wife, Elise, and four young children. He is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: September 2025

Calderon runs a lobbying firm and is part of a political dynasty from southeastern Los Angeles County that’s held power in Sacramento for decades.

He ran for state Assembly at age 26 and branded himself as the first millennial elected to the California Legislature.

During his four terms, Calderon created the Blockchain Working Group to oversee regulation of cryptocurrency and other technology, authored legislation to prohibit full-service restaurants from handing out plastic straws to customers unless requested and helped restore the Whittier Courthouse in L.A. County.

The family name was tarnished in Sacramento after two uncles, former state Sen. Ronald Calderon and former Assemblymember Tom Calderon, served prison time for crimes related to a bribery scheme. Neither Ian Calderon nor his father, former Assemblymember and state Sen. Charles Calderon, were accused of wrongdoing.

A onetime competitive surfer, Calderon graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 2009. After graduation, he joined surfing apparel company Hurley International and worked on the retail marketing team.

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Steve Hilton

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Top job: Senior advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron
Biggest splash: Fox News commentator
Particulars: Hilton, 56, was born in England and lives in the Northern California town of Atherton with his wife, Rachel Whetstone, who worked as a public relations executive for Google, Uber, Facebook and Netflix. They have two children. He is a Republican.
Campaign launch: April 2025

The son of Hungarian immigrants, Hilton began working for Britain’s Conservative Party shortly after graduating from Oxford University and steadily rose up the ranks.

Described as “part Svengali, part spin doctor, part strategist” by the London Standard in 2006, Hilton was a senior advisor and close confidant of Cameron, who served as Britain’s prime minister from 2010 to 2016. Hilton was credited with modernizing the British conservative movement, remaining true to free-market ideals while also supporting liberal social policy, such as backing gay rights and fighting climate change.

Hilton immigrated to California in 2012 with his wife. Since he moved to the United States, Hilton has taught at Stanford University, hosted a Fox News show called “The Next Revolution” and co-founded Crowdpac, a nonpartisan political fundraising website. He parted ways with the company 2018 after his support of Trump created controversy. After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Hilton called for an investigation into allegations of voter fraud.

A persistent critic of Newsom and the policies of California’s Democratic state leadership, Hilton in 2023 founded Golden Together, a research group focused on restoring the California dream.

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Matt Mahan

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Top job: San José mayor.
Biggest splash: Vocal supporter of Proposition 36, the 2024 ballot measure that increased penalties for theft and crimes involving fentanyl.
Particulars: Mahan, 43, was raised in Watsonville and lives in San José with his wife, Silvia Scandar Mahan, president of Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit High School, and their two young children. He is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: January 2026.

Mahan, a Harvard graduate and tech entrepreneur from Watsonville, was elected to the San José City Council in 2020 and then as mayor of the Silicon Valley city in a narrow upset in 2022. In 2024, he was reelected in a landslide.

As mayor, Mahan has taken a decidedly moderate path to governing and openly criticized some progressive policies that Newsom and other fellow Democratic leaders have championed in the left-leaning state.

He broke with Newsom and other Democratic leaders to back Proposition 36, the 2024 ballot measure that increased penalties for theft and crimes involving fentanyl. After the measure was passed overwhelmingly by voters, he accused Newsom of failing to properly fund its statewide implementation.

Mahan also pushed through a plan in San José to arrest people on the street who repeatedly decline offers of shelter, which some progressives lambasted as inhumane. He has also joined Newsom in opposing a proposed tax on California billionaires that backers are trying to put on November ballots, saying the tax would drive taxpaying billionaires and their businesses out of the state.

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Katie Porter

(Andrew Harnik / Pool photo )

Top job: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Orange County
Biggest splash: Using a whiteboard to embarrass CEOs
Particulars: Porter, 52, served in the House for three terms after capturing an Orange County congressional seat held by a Republican incumbent. Porter is a law professor at UC Irvine, a job she returned to after losing a 2024 bid for U.S. Senate. Porter is a single mother and has three children.
Campaign launch: March 2025

After winning a competitive Orange County House seat in 2018, Porter quickly became known for her incisive questioning of corporate leaders and use of a whiteboard to distill complex concepts during congressional hearings.

Porter returned to her job as a law professor at UC Irvine after a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 2024, when she finished in a distant third place in the March primary. Her decision to run for Senate annoyed some party leaders who feared that a Republican might win her vacant House seat and tip the balance of power in Congress. Democrat Dave Min won her seat, however.

Porter clashed with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) in 2021 over committee assignments, and Pelosi also was initially cool to Porter’s support to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks. That resoluteness helped transform Porter into a standout national political figure. She became one of the House’s top fundraisers.

In 2012, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recommended Porter to then-California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris to be the independent monitor over a $25-billion settlement of mortgage lenders. Porter was a law professor at the time.

Porter caught heat early in the fall after she tangled with a television reporter during a heated interview in October, an incident that rival candidates used to question her temperament.

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Jon Slavet

(Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

Top job: Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur
Biggest splash: Co-founding Guru.com, a site that connects companies with high-tech workers seeking short-term gigs; leading the upscale housing website Sentral.com; working as an executive at the coworking-space-creator WeWork.
Particulars: Slavet, 58, is a multimillionaire who has lived in California for three decades and resides in Palo Alto. He and his wife have five children.
Campaign launch: December 2025

Slavet was a longtime Democrat but registered as a Republicans in recent years, echoing the late President Reagan’s argument that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the party left him. In addition to his tech work, Slavet founded and hosts the “State of Gold” podcast, which has featured guests of both political parties, including some of the candidates he is now running against in the 2026 gubernatorial contest.

He said voters’ November passage of Proposition 50, a rare mid-decade redrawing of California’s congressional districts to boost the number of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, prompted him to enter the gubernatorial race. He opposed the ballot measure.

He argues that his business experience uniquely qualifies him to fix state problems such as homelessness, poverty, unemployment and energy costs.

A multimillionaire, Slavet has committed to spending at least $1 million on his campaign, but said he would “put in what it takes to be competitive.”

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Tom Steyer

(Jeff Gentner / Getty Images for SiriusXM)

Top job: Billionaire hedge fund manager
Biggest splash: Ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020
Particulars: Steyer, 68, is a billionaire former financier who has used his wealth to fund his environmental and political activism. He has been one of the nation’s most generous financial supporters of Democratic candidates. Born in New York, Steyer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Kat Taylor, and they have four children.
Campaign launch: November 2025

Steyer has been in the thick of California and national politics for years, first as a generous donor and in recent years by championing state ballot measures and as a candidate. After flirting with runs for governor and U.S. Senate and then backing off, Steyer ran for president in 2020. He dropped out after spending nearly $342 million on his campaign, which gained little traction before he ended his run after the South Carolina primary.

Steyer made his fortune as founder of Farallon Capital Management, one of the nation’s largest hedge funds, and left it in 2012 after 26 years. After leaving, he became a major environmental activist and benefactor. Steyer has been criticized for the firm’s investments in a giant coal mine in Australia and a company that ran migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Along with backing Proposition 50, the redistricting ballot measure approved by California voters in November, Steyer successfully supported ballot measures to close a corporate tax loophole and to raise tobacco taxes.

As governor, Steyer said, he would build 1 million homes in four years, lower energy costs by ending monopolies, make preschool and community college free and ban corporate contributions to political action committees in California elections.

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Eric Swalwell

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Top job: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
Biggest splash: Prominent Trump critic who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020
Particulars: Swalwell, 45, is a former prosecutor who frequently appears on cable news castigating the president. Born in Iowa, he grew up in Dublin, Calif., and lives in Livermore in the eastern Bay Area with his wife, Brittany Watts, and their three children.
Campaign launch: November 2025

Swalwell grew up in Dublin in the Bay Area, which he said was referred to as “Scrublin” at the time. After attending law school, he returned to the community and served on the city’s planning commission. They were able to grow the housing stock and improve schools and community services by leveraging developers who sought to build there.

After serving on the City Council, Swalwell defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Pete Stark in 2012. In recent years, he also became a frequent face on cable news shows criticizing Trump — the reason he believes the administration forwarded a charge of mortgage fraud to the Department of Justice this year. He also came under scrutiny for his association with a woman believed to be a Chinese spy, but he was never accused of impropriety.

As governor, Swalwell said, he would seek to encourage seniors to downsize and to make the building process easier so that young families can afford to buy homes in California. He also said he would modernize state government by eliminating the need to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles in person for certain appointments and by allowing voting by phone. He also said he would prioritize using incentives to get the television and film industry to return to the state.

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Tony Thurmond

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

Top job: California superintendent of public instruction
Biggest splash: Kicked out of a Chino Valley Unified School District board meeting after opposing a policy to inform parents about student gender identity
Particulars: Thurmond, 57, represented the East Bay in the state Assembly before he was elected to California’s top education post in 2018. He is engaged and has two children. He is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: September 2023

Thurmond served on the West Contra Costa Unified School District board and the Richmond City Council before he was elected to the state Assembly in 2014, serving two terms. With strong support from the California Teachers Assn. and other labor unions, Thurmond was elected as California’s superintendent of public instruction in 2018 and was reelected in 2022.

When he announced his campaign for governor, Thurmond highlighted his youth living in poverty, having been essentially orphaned at 6 years old after his mother, an immigrant from Panama, died, and his father, a veteran, was absent. Inspired by his Afro Latino heritage, he has vowed to tackle California’s economic inequality, calling for a higher minimum wage, higher pay for teachers and more affordable housing.

Thurmond has leaned into increasingly politicized school culture wars. He opposed textbook bans such as those enacted in red states and attempted by conservative school boards in California and was forcibly removed from a Chino Valley Unified school board meeting in 2023 after he spoke in opposition to a policy that would force school officials to inform parents if their child identified as transgender.

Voters overwhelmingly reelected Thurmond in 2022 despite criticism of his handling of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and an alleged turnover problem in the state’s Department of Education amid accusations that he was running a toxic workplace.

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Antonio Villaraigosa

(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)

Top job: Los Angeles mayor
Biggest splash: Increasing the Los Angeles Police Department to 10,000 officers, and leading a major drop in violent crime
Particulars: Villaraigosa, 73, served as state Assembly speaker before being elected mayor of the nation’s second-largest city. The former mayor was raised by a single mother in Boyle Heights and lives in the Los Angeles area. He has four children. He is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: July 2024

After serving as Assembly speaker and on the Los Angeles City Council, Villaraigosa in 2005 became the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since 1872. He was reelected four years later and, during his tenure, had the politically bruising task of navigating the city through the financial upheaval caused by the Great Recession.

While mayor, he brought the number of LAPD officers to more than 10,000, an effort he credited for a 48% drop in violent crime. Villaraigosa was also a vocal backer of mass transit and a key architect of the 2008 landmark sales tax increase that helped fund the construction of rail lines through South Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley and the Westside.

Although he started his career as a labor organizer, Villaraigosa evolved into something of a foil for Southern California’s labor movement, tangling at City Hall with the powerful unions representing city employees and teachers over budget cuts and seniority-based layoff protections. He became the most prominent Democrat in California to criticize teachers unions during his failed efforts to take control of L.A. schools, describing the union as an “unwavering roadblock to reform.”

Villaraigosa also drew national attention for his high-profile missteps, including an extramarital affair with Telemundo reporter and anchor Mirthala Salinas that led to the breakup of his marriage of two decades.

He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 and has been out of public office since 2013.

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Betty Yee

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Top job: California controller
Biggest splash: During Yee’s tenure as controller, her agency uncovered tens of millions of dollars of local government misspending and questionable financial practices at state agencies.
Particulars: Yee, 68, was born to Chinese immigrant parents and grew up in San Francisco, where the family lived in a one-room apartment behind their dry cleaning business. Yee lives in the Bay Area with her husband, Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs. She is a Democrat.
Campaign launch: March 2024

Yee served as state budget director under former Gov. Gray Davis before winning a seat on the California State Board of Equalization in 2006 and again in 2010. She was elected state controller in 2014. Her audits and investigations from the controller’s office, she said, found more than $4 billion in misused funds. She won reelection in 2018, and her second term ended in January 2023.

Yee has emphasized her financial background and budget experience, both of which could appeal to California voters as the state grapples with a historic shortfall. Budget projections suggest the next governor could walk into a challenging fiscal environment if state revenue doesn’t rebound.

When she announced her campaign, Yee spoke about how her modest beginnings crystallized her focus on the importance of financial health. As a young girl, she managed the books of the family business and saw firsthand how a bad week meant cutting back on groceries and other essential spending for her and her five siblings, she said.

A 2022 Times report detailed how Yee gave behind-the-scenes advice to a politically connected company seeking a $600-million no-bid government contract to provide COVID-19 masks and raised questions about her involvement. Yee has said that she had no financial interest in the contract and that the advice was the same she would offer any business owners.

Yee served as a vice chair of the California Democratic Party.

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Quitters, Decliners and Maybes

Clockwise from top left: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA), Former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Rick Caruso, State Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Senator Toni Atkins.

(Los Angeles Times, Getty Images, Associated Press)

Toni Atkins, former California Senate Pro Tem, Democrat — dropped out.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, Democrat — opted not to run.
Rick Caruso, businessman, Democrat — opted not to run.
Stephen J. Cloobeck, businessman, Democrat — dropped out.
Caitlyn Jenner, Olympic decathlete-turned-reality television star, Republican — maybe, maybe not.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrat — opted not to run.
California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Democrat — dropped out.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, Democrat — opted not to run.

Times staff writers Hannah Fry, Taryn Luna, Mackenzie Mays, Laura J. Nelson, Kevin Rector, Laurel Rosenhall, Dakota Smith and Julia Wick contributed to this report.