Morning Digest: California's next race for governor is huge—and getting huger

Half a dozen major names are already running, and more are lurking, including the biggest of them all

Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis last year became the first major Democrat to announce a bid for governor of California, but she was far from the last. (credit: Eleni Kounalakis Facebook)

Leading Off

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The race to lead California is already packed at a time when most of the nation's gubernatorial races are only just beginning to take shape―and many more potential candidates are considering whether to join.

Even before last month's elections, five prominent Democrats were already running to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom in the nation's largest state. The race began in earnest less than four months after Newsom took the oath of office for his second term when two major names, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former state Comptroller Betty Yee, entered the top-two primary in April of 2023.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond joined them later that same year, while two more contenders entered the race this year: former state Sen. Toni Atkins, who recently finished a stint as the chamber's powerful president pro tempore, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Each of these candidates could achieve at least one historic milestone. Atkins would be California's first LGBTQ governor, and she, along with Kounalakis and Yee, would all be the first woman elected to lead the Golden State.

Yee, who is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, would also be the first Asian American to hold the post, while Thurmond and Villaraigosa would each be the first Latino ever elected to lead the state. (Thurmond's mother emigrated from Panama, while Villaraigosa's father came from Mexico.) Thurmond would be California's first Black chief executive as well.

The field grew again last month when wealthy businessman Stephen Cloobeck declared that he'd run as a Democrat―an announcement he made on the day of the presidential election. But while almost no one was thinking about 2026 that day, Cloobeck still sought to make a splash with what the Los Angeles Times' Laura Nelson characterized as a "barrage of advertisements on TV stations and news websites."

The new candidate, who has long been a major party donor, also used his opening message to attack Newsom's tenure, arguing that the governor had "closed [California] for business, and we’ve had enough."

This isn't the first time that Cloobeck, who founded the timeshare giant Diamond Resorts International and made several appearances on "Undercover Boss," has wanted to be governor—though not of California.

In 2017, Cloobeck announced that he was interested in leading Nevada, which he charged was in "disarray." The would-be candidate, though, angered his party by endorsing Republican Sen. Dean Heller, the Democrats' top target in the chamber in 2018. Few were disappointed when he decided to sit out the race for governor and instead backed Democrat Steve Sisolak's successful effort.

Several other Democrats with deeper ties to California are also still considering the race to succeed Newsom.

Xavier Becerra, a former congressman and state attorney general who is finishing up his stint as Joe Biden's secretary of health and human services, acknowledged his interest in June. As with Thurmond and Villaraigosa, Becerra would be California's first elected Latino governor. (Republican Romualdo Pacheco served for less than a year in 1875 after getting elevated from the lieutenant governorship.)

Attorney General Rob Bonta, Becerra's immediate successor, has likewise said he's weighing a bid, with the San Francisco Chronicle's Sophia Bollag characterizing him as a "likely candidate." The attorney general, though, informed the paper the day after last month's elections that he was still undecided and didn't know when he'd make up his mind.

Bonta, who emigrated from the Philippines to escape the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, became the state's first Filipino American attorney general in 2021 when Newsom picked him to succeed Becerra. Like Yee, Bonta would be the Golden State's first Asian American leader.

Another name to watch belongs to developer Rick Caruso, who spent over $100 million in his failed race for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022. A source told the L.A. Times in June that Caruso hadn't dismissed the idea of running for governor but added that he could also try to avenge his 55-45 loss against Mayor Karen Bass, a fellow Democrat.

In addition, outgoing Rep. Katie Porter, who unsuccessfully campaigned for the Senate this year, told Fox 11 last month she was "still thinking" about running for governor. Porter, as we wrote in a recent Digest, recently formed a new state-level PAC aimed at supporting women candidates, which Politico's Christopher Cadelago sees as an indication she's "likely" to get in.

And looming over all of this is the possibility that Kamala Harris could upend the entire race. While the vice president has shown no public interest in returning home to seek the governorship, Politico wrote last month that the idea "has frozen the field and kept some fundraisers on the sidelines."

One Democrat who sounds unlikely to get in, though, is Laphonza Butler, whose departure from the Senate took effect on Sunday. While Bollag writes that Butler wouldn't answer when quizzed last month about her interest in replacing Newsom, the senator told the L.A. Times's Seema Mehta that she didn't see herself seeking office.

"We have an incredibly deep talent of great thinkers and strategists who are going to be able to take that work on," Butler said.

The number of potential Republican candidates is considerably smaller in a state where the GOP hasn't won a single statewide race since 2006, though some notable figures may still try their luck.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco expressed interest back in June, and his team now tells Bollag that he's "expected to reach a decision by early next year." Bianco attracted widespread attention in June when he responded to Donald Trump's conviction on fraud charges by saying, "I think it's time we put a felon in the White House."

Both former state Sen. Brian Dahle and Fox host Steve Hilton, who previously worked as an advisor to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, also are considering running for governor. So is reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, who predicted last month that she would "destroy" Harris if the two faced one another.

But despite her fame and bravado, Jenner took just 1% of the vote when she ran as a replacement candidate during the 2021 recall election against Newsom. (Because a 62-38 majority voted against ousting Newsom, the results of this question turned out to be meaningless.) Dahle challenged the governor the next year and lost 59-41.

How EMILYs List's candidates won in a tough year

Senate

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Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday that he'd "be making an announcement after the first of the year" about whether he'll seek a sixth term. The 80-year-old Durbin, who has been the number-two ranking Democrat in the Senate for 20 years, has served in Congress continually ever since winning an election to the House in 1982.

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Outgoing Rep. Garret Graves, who did not seek reelection last month, isn't quite ruling out a swift return to Congress via the upper chamber. When asked by NOLA.com's Mark Ballard whether he might challenge Sen. Bill Cassidy, a fellow Republican despised by MAGA, Graves said he wants to "detox from D.C. politics and spend much more time with normal people back home."

That detox may not last very long, though: Graves is also reportedly under consideration to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Graves declined to run for a sixth term after Louisiana passed a new congressional map that made his district much bluer following litigation under the Voting Rights Act.

TX-Sen

Republican Sen. John Cornyn has long been a loud and proud supporter of Donald Trump, but his occasional apostasies have drawn the ire of MAGA purists and could land him a primary challenge in 2026.

Cornyn's most prominent would-be rival is Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said last year that a campaign against the incumbent was "on the table." The two engaged in trash talk earlier this year when Paxton knocked Cornyn's chances of succeeding Mitch McConnell as the GOP's Senate leader by calling him "anti-Trump" and "anti-gun" and saying he'd be preoccupied with "a highly competitive primary campaign in 2026."

Cornyn fired back by snarking, "Hard to run from prison, Ken," a retort that lost its bite a few weeks later when federal prosecutors reached an agreement with Paxton on long-simmering fraud charges that did not include jail time. Cornyn also lost his bid to replace McConnell last month, though Paxton, once praised by Trump as a possible choice for U.S. attorney general, seems to have been passed over for a Cabinet post himself.

Even if Paxton, who's also up for reelection in two years, decides to stay put, there are others who might give it a go. Tarrant County GOP chair Bo French recently issued a statement attacking Cornyn for expressing some mild hesitation about some of Trump's nominees, saying he was "not ruling anything out." (Tarrant is home to Fort Worth and is the third-largest county in Texas.)

Two years ago, Patrick Svitek, then at the Texas Tribune, reported that Rep. Ronny Jackson was considering a bid as well. At the time, Jackson didn't rule anything out, but he doesn't appear to have spoken publicly about the race since then.

Governors

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Republican Rep. Kevin Hern's flirtation with a bid for governor in two years' time has proven to be brief indeed: Just two weeks after first floating the idea, Hern issued a statement saying he would not run, citing the GOP's narrow majority in the House. No major names have yet entered the race to succeed Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who is term-limited.

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Republican Rep. Dan Meuser, who easily won reelection last month in Pennsylvania's deep-red 9th District, tells the Philadelphia Inquirer's Gillian McGoldrick that he's doing "due diligence" ahead of a possible challenge to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in 2026. So far, no Republicans have joined the race.

Mayors & County Leaders

Maricopa County, AZ Board of Supervisors

A recount has confirmed Republican Kate Brophy McGee as the winner of a closely contested race for the Board of Supervisors in Arizona's Maricopa County, ensuring Republicans will retain their 4-1 majority. Following last month's election, Brophy McGee led Democrat Daniel Valenzuela by 164 votes, a difference of just 0.04%, triggering an automatic recount. Updated vote totals following the recount were not immediately available. All five seats on the board will be up again in 2028.