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

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Welcome to your guide to the 2026 California governor’s race. The election may be a long way off, but campaigns for the state’s most coveted political prize already are underway.

The race is wide open since Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is serving his second term as California governor 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.

Here are the declared candidates and some potential hopefuls:

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Toni Atkins

Top job: California Senate president pro tem
Biggest splash: First female and first out LGBTQ+ president pro tem in state history
Particulars: Atkins, 62, lives in San Diego with her wife, Jennifer LeSar, an affordable housing and economic development consultant. Atkins grew up in rural Virginia, the daughter of a coal miner and a seamstress. She’s a Democrat.
Campaign launch: January 2024

Atkins was elected to the California Legislature in 2010 and is serving her final term as a state lawmaker. She is a former Senate president pro tem and a former Assembly speaker, the first legislator since 1871 to hold both leadership posts. She was the first female and first out LGBTQ+ Senate leader in state history.

Atkins began her political career on the San Diego City Council after serving as a women’s clinic administrator. As Assembly leader, she championed a $7.5-billion water bond that was approved by voters in 2014, fought back against planned tuition hikes at the University of California and battled for a new state tax credit for the working poor.

Atkins has been a champion of affordable housing while serving in Sacramento. She also wrote the legislation that became Proposition 1 in 2022, codifying abortion rights in the California Constitution after national protections were undone by the U.S. Supreme Court.

She often talks about growing up as a miner’s child in Virginia in a house that lacked indoor plumbing, and said she first heard of California as a “magical place” her father had visited while serving in World War II. She eventually followed her sister to San Diego and began working at a reproductive health clinic.

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Eleni Kounalakis

Top job: California lieutenant governor
Biggest splash: Major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns
Particulars: Kounalakis, 58, is the daughter of wealthy Sacramento developer Angelo Tsakopoulos and is married to foreign affairs columnist Markos Kounalakis. They live in San Francisco and have two children. She’s a Democrat.
Campaign launch: April 2023

Kounalakis was first elected lieutenant governor in 2018 and reelected in 2022. The office is largely a ceremonial post that’s been used as a launchpad for the governor’s mansion. Both Newsom and former Gov. Gray Davis previously served as lieutenant governor. Kounalakis has highlighted her work in the job opposing college tuition hikes, combating climate change and protecting women’s rights.

As the daughter of a real estate magnate, she and her family have spent generously on their political priorities in the past, including Kounalakis’ first lieutenant governor’s race.

She was the first major candidate to formally launch a gubernatorial campaign when she announced in April 2023. Kounalakis quickly received endorsements from Clinton, her former boss, and from former California U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Kounalakis helped raise money for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and then worked for her when Clinton was secretary of State and Kounalakis was ambassador to Hungary. In 2016, Kounalakis was a California co-chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign, helping raise money and advising on foreign policy.

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Tony Thurmond

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, 55, 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

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, 71, 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 currently 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

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, 66, 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. 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 serves as a vice chair of the California Democratic Party.