Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announces another run for California governor
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday morning announced a 2026 run for California governor, his second bid for the office after an unsuccessful run in 2018.
Villaraigosa, who has been out of elected office since leaving Los Angeles City Hall in 2013, joins a crowded field of high-level Democratic candidates that includes Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former state Controller Betty Yee, state Sen. Toni Atkins, and state schools Supt. Tony Thurmond. All are vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term in office.
In his announcement, Villaraigosa, 71, emphasized his ability to work with both Democrats and Republicans while mayor and when he served as speaker of the California Assembly, and his record of balancing budgets and enhancing public safety and education.
The governor’s race has no apparent front-runner. Whomever voters send to Sacramento in 2026 will face a long list of major issues, including homelessness, the rising cost of housing, concerns about crime and an unemployment rate that remains stubbornly higher than the national average.
President Biden’s decision to step down from the 2024 presidential contest and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee raises questions about California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political future.
“People are looking for a problem solver, and someone who’s proven,” Villaraigosa said in an interview Tuesday. Voters in California, he said, will be looking for results, not just words.
Villaraigosa served as mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, navigating the financial upheaval caused by the nation’s Great Recession.
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.’s schools, describing the union as an “unwavering roadblock to reform.”
“We were looking at a bankruptcy,” Villaraigosa said. “I had to make tough decisions.”
He pointed to his work to improve Los Angeles schools, including forming a nonprofit foundation that raised millions of dollars and managed more than a dozen low-performing campuses. During his time as mayor, L.A. Unified schools saw a 66% increase in the graduation rate and an explosion of publicly financed, independent charter schools.
His other signature effort as mayor — bringing the number of Los Angeles Police Department officers to more than 10,000 — was the culmination of an expensive seven-year campaign during the recession. He credited that effort with a 48% drop in violent crime during his tenure at City Hall.
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.
He also drew headlines 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.
Villaraigosa left office in 2013, famously saying at the time that he had “no job, no house, no car.” He began teaching at USC and took roles with the multilevel marketing company Herbalife, Banc of California, the water company Cadiz and the AltaMed chain of health clinics.
He mounted a campaign for governor in 2018 as a business-friendly centrist, finishing a distant third in the primary behind Newsom and Republican John Cox.
The campaign became a proxy war between California’s powerful teachers unions, which supported Newsom, and the pro-charter school forces that backed Villaraigosa. The outside groups supporting Villaraigosa spent a combined $32 million, breaking records at the time. Newsom also consolidated support in Hollywood, Villaraigosa’s home turf.
Villaraigosa said after his 2018 loss that his allies, donors and advisors had urged him not to run, saying he had never won statewide office and wasn’t well known outside Los Angeles. He said at the time that being out of the public eye for five years had been a blow.
“Last time around, they tried to turn me into some right-wing guy, and I’m no right-wing guy,” Villaraigosa said Tuesday. “Virtually everyone in this town and, increasingly, in this state, will know that I’m unabashedly progressive.”
In 2022, Newsom chose Villaraigosa to be a top advisor on infrastructure issues, tasked with helping to identify projects that could reap federal funding from Biden’s infrastructure law.
Villaraigosa will focus on more equitable financial systems for Black and Latino customers, the cryptocurrency trading platform said.
In May, Villaraigosa took a paid position on the global advisory council of the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase.
By early 2027, when Newsom’s successor takes office, Villaraigosa will be 73. But, he said, “I think what you’ll see is that I have the energy of a young man. Why? I eat healthy, I work out every day, I have a love for life and a love for public service that I think people find infectious.”
Villaraigosa is just the latest top state Democrat to announce a bid for governor, and more may follow. State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has said he’s considering a gubernatorial bid but hasn’t officially joined the race.
No high-profile Republicans have announced a run for governor, although in June, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a conservative known for espousing law-and-order views and fierce criticism of Newsom, said he was considering a 2026 campaign.
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