With Harris on the sideline, top Democratic candidates for California governor woo party loyalists
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- Eight of the Democrats in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom wooed the party faithful and talked up their bona fides at the California Democratic Party’s convention in Anaheim
- Many Democrats say they’re waiting to back a gubernatorial candidate until they know whether former Vice President Kamala Harris will run
California’s most loyal Democrats got a good look this weekend at the wide field of gubernatorial candidates jockeying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom at the state Democratic Party’s annual convention in Anaheim, with a few chiding former vice president and potential rival Kamala Harris.
The Democrats running for governor in 2026 hurried among caucus meetings, floor speeches and after-parties, telling their personal stories and talking up their bona fides for tackling some of California’s most entrenched problems, including housing affordability and the rising cost of living.
All the hand-shaking and selfies were done in the absence of Harris, who would be the most prominent candidate in the race, and who has not said whether she’ll run for governor in 2026 or seek the White House again in 2028.
The most visible candidates at the convention were former state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, businessman Stephen J. Cloobeck, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former state Controller Betty Yee, with former Rep. Katie Porter, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa taking less prominent roles.
With the primary still a year away, the gubernatorial race is still in limbo. Two prominent Republicans are also in the race: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton.
Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra were complicit in covering up former President Biden’s cognitive decline while in office.
Many Democratic activists, donors and elected officials said they were waiting to make up their minds until Harris makes up hers, because her entry into the governor’s race could push some candidates off the ballot or into other statewide races.
“People are kind of waiting to see what she’s going to do,” said Matt Savage, a delegate from San Jose, as attendees ate chia seed pudding and breakfast burritos at a breakfast hosted by Yee. “She needs to decide soon.”
Yee told the crowd: “Regardless of who gets in the race, we’re staying in.”
Surrounded by canvassers who chanted his name as he talked, Cloobeck, a political newcomer, scolded Harris for not coming to the gathering of Democrats after her loss to President Trump in the November presidential election.
“If she decides to get in this race, shame on her for not showing up for the most important people in the party, which is the people who are here today,” Cloobeck said. “And if she doesn’t have the IQ to show up, she’s tone deaf once again.”
In a three-minute recorded video, Harris told Democrats that with Republicans working to cut taxes for the rich and dismantle efforts to fight climate change, “things are probably going to get worse before they get better.”
“But that is not reason to throw up our hands,” Harris said. “It’s a reason to roll up our sleeves.”
Polling shows that if Harris were to run for governor, she would have a major advantage: A November survey from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that about 72% of Democrats would be very likely or somewhat likely to consider voting for her.
The wide-open race to succeed Gavin Newsom as California governor has already attracted a large and diverse field of candidates.
Cloobeck said his campaign had spent “probably a couple hundred thousand dollars” on the canvassers, who wore royal blue shirts emblazoned with his name and distributed glossy invitations to a comedy night with “Roastmaster General” comedian Jeff Ross. One canvasser said he was paid $25 an hour and found the job on Craigslist.
At the party’s LGBTQ caucus meeting, Atkins, the only well-known gay candidate in the race, told the cheering crowd that she dreamed of making California work for others the way it had worked for her. Atkins, 62, was raised in southwest Virginia by a coal miner and a garment worker and moved to San Diego in her 20s.
“California has given me every opportunity,” Atkins said. “I want that promise to be true for everyone.”
At the Latino caucus, Villaraigosa said that the Democratic Party needs to focus on the affordability crisis facing working-class Californians, many of whom are Latinos, by tackling high gas prices, home prices, utility costs and other day-to-day cost of living challenges.
Villaraigosa, 72, has been out of elected office for more than a decade. He last ran for for governor in 2018, placing a distant third in the primary behind Newsom and Republican businessman John Cox. He noted that he also lost the 2001 mayor’s race before winning in 2005.
“Sometimes it takes two times,” Villaraigosa said to the caucus. “We’re ready, we’re not invisible. We’re going to stand up for working people and our communities.”
Thurmond told the crowd during the party’s general session on Saturday afternoon that education is “the centerpiece of our democracy.” It brought his grandparents to the U.S. and saved his life after his mother died when he was 6, he said.
“We must continue to be the resistance against Donald Trump’s misguided policies,” he said. “We will ensure that every student in this state has access to good quality education. And while we’re at it, we will not allow for ICE to be on any of our school campuses.”
President Trump blasted Gov. Gavin Newsom in a post, saying the state under his leadership “continues to ILLEGALLY allow MEN TO PLAY IN WOMEN’S SPORTS.”
Four candidates made brief appearances before the party’s powerful organized labor caucus, trying to make the case that they would be the best choice for the state’s more than 2.4 million union members.
In a 45-second speech, Cloobeck told the union members that he used union labor in his hotel development projects and promised that if he were elected, he would support workers getting “full pay, full wages” if they went on strike.
Yee said she’d “protect and advance your precious pension funds.” She took a passing shot at Newsom’s now-infamous dinner at the French Laundry in Napa Valley during the COVID-19 pandemic. Newsom attended a lobbyist’s birthday party at the upscale restaurant after he had pleaded with Californians to stay home and avoid multifamily gatherings.
“I’m not about gimmicks,” Yee said. “I’m the least flashy person. Hell, I’ve not even stepped foot in the French Laundry — but I can tell you, I grew up in a Chinese laundry.”
Kounalakis told the party’s labor meeting that her father immigrated to the U.S. at age 14 and worked his way through college as a waiter at the governor’s mansion before building a successful development company in Sacramento.
Her vision of California’s future, she said, is massive investment in water infrastructure, clean energy infrastructure, roadway infrastructure and housing: “We’re going to build the future of this state, and we’re going to do it with union labor.”
At the party’s senior caucus meeting, Becerra told Democrats that he was raised by working-class, immigrant parents who bought their own home in Sacramento, then questioned whether a couple without college degrees could do the same today.
He touted his experience fighting GOP efforts to cut Social Security Disability Insurance as a member of Congress and work lowering drug costs as President Biden’s health chief.
“We’re going to fight for you,” Becerra said.
At the women’s caucus, Porter, who left Congress in January after losing a run for Senate, said she was concerned that Trump’s budget cuts and policies will have a disproportionate impact on mothers, children and the LGBTQ+ community.
“That s— is not happening on my watch,” Porter said.
Ann McKeown, 66, president of the Acton-Agua Dulce Democratic Club in Los Angeles County’s High Desert, said she had wanted Harris to be the president “so badly,” but Porter is her top choice for governor.
“Kamala is nicer than Katie Porter,” McKeown said, “and we don’t need nice right now.”
Delegate Jane Baulch-Enloe of Contra Costa County and her daughter spread the contents of their bag of Democratic Party swag across a table, taking stock of the flyers and campaign memorabilia, including a Becerra for Governor button, a clear plastic coin purse from Yee and a blue Thurmond bookmark that read, “Ban fascism, not books.”
Baulch-Enloe, who teaches middle school English and history, said she originally thought she’d support Thurmond because he understands education.
“But now that there’s so many people in the race, I’m not sure,” Baulch-Enloe said.
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