California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta opts against running for governor. Again
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- California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced he will not run for governor, prioritizing his legal battles against the Trump administration over higher office.
- Bonta has sued the Trump administration more than 50 times, a record he could have leveraged as a gubernatorial candidate.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Sunday that he would not run for California governor, a decision he said was grounded in his belief that his legal efforts combating the Trump administration as the state’s top prosecutor are paramount at this time in history.
“In this moment, my place is here, on the front lines, in the trenches, serving as a bulwark, creating a protection around our state and our people, our values and our progress in the face of these vicious, inhumane, unlawful, cruel attacks from the Trump administration,” Bonta said in an interview Sunday night.
Bonta said his role as state attorney general affords him greater power to fight President Trump’s policies that have disproportionately affected Californians than he would be able to do as governor.
“I have a role to play that I think is leading in the nation,” Bonta said. “I want to continue to be the biggest and most powerful check on the abuse of power from this president.”
Bonta said that Trump’s actions in Venezuela, attempts to block welfare funds to Democratic-led states and the fatal shooting of a Minnesota mother of three last week by a federal immigration agent cemented his decision to seek reelection to his current post.
Atty. General Rob Bonta spent nearly half a million on attorneys after he was approached by the Department of Justice, according to his consultant.
The 53-year-old former state lawmaker and close political ally to Gov. Gavin Newsom has served as the state’s top law enforcement official since Newsom appointed him to the position in 2021, after Xavier Becerra became then-President Biden’s chief of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Bonta’s office has sued the Trump administration more than 50 times — a track record that would probably have served him well had he decided to run in a state where Trump has lost three times and has dismal approval ratings.
In 2024, Bonta said that he was considering running for governor. Then in February he announced he had ruled it out and was focused instead on doing the job of attorney general. After former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced in 2025 that they would not run for governor, Bonta began reconsidering, he said. Bonta’s final decision not to run was first reported by Politico on Sunday.
“I had two horses in the governor’s race already,” Bonta told The Times in November. “They decided not to get involved in the end. ... The race is fundamentally different today, right?”
The race for California governor remains wide open. Newsom is serving the final year of his second term and is barred from running again because of term limits. Newsom has said he is considering a run for president in 2028.
Former Rep. Katie Porter — an early leader in polls — late last year faltered after videos emerged of her screaming at an aide and berating a reporter. The videos contributed to her dropping behind Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, in a November poll released by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.
Porter rebounded a bit toward the end of the year, a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed, however none of the candidates has secured a majority of support and many voters remain undecided.
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said his office spent more than $5 million fighting the Trump administration in recent months, but saved California nearly $170 billion.
California hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2006, Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in the state, and many are seething with anger over Trump and looking for Democratic candidates willing to fight back against the current administration.
Labor unions as well as business leaders encouraged Bonta to enter the unsettled race. Bonta said he had no immediate plans to endorse a candidate.
“I think I could have been a game changer, and I think I would have consolidated a lot of support,” Bonta said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think it’s still very much dynamic. It’s not static, it’s in flux. It’s moving. It’s changing. I think you’re going to see potentially more candidates enter the race.”
Bonta has faced questions in recent months about spending about $468,000 in campaign funds on legal advice last year as he spoke to federal investigators about alleged corruption involving former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who was charged in an alleged bribery scheme involving local businessmen David Trung Duong and Andy Hung Duong. All three have pleaded not guilty.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state Democratic leaders had accused the president of pursuing a political vendetta after he froze federal funding for social services programs.
According to his political consultant Dan Newman, Bonta — who had received campaign donations from the Duong family — was approached by investigators because he was initially viewed as a “possible victim” in the alleged scheme, though that was later ruled out. Bonta has since returned $155,000 in campaign contributions from the Duong family, according to news reports.
Bonta is the son of civil rights activists Warren Bonta, a white native Californian, and Cynthia Bonta, a native of the Philippines who immigrated to the U.S. on a scholarship in 1965. Bonta, a U.S. citizen, was born in Quezon City, Philippines, in 1972, when his parents were working there as missionaries, and immigrated with his family to California as an infant.
In 2012, Bonta was elected to represent Oakland, Alameda and San Leandro as the first Filipino American to serve in California’s Legislature. In Sacramento, he pursued a string of criminal justice reforms and developed a record as one of the body’s most liberal members.
Bonta is married to Assemblywoman Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), who succeeded him in the state Assembly, and the couple have three children.
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
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