Antonio Villaraigosa, the popular former mayor of Los Angeles, announced on Tuesday that he will seek the governorship of California in 2026. The politician of Mexican origin, the first Latino to govern the city since 1872, joins a large group of Democratic politicians seeking to replace Gavin Newsom, who by law can no longer aspire to a third term in the most populous state in the United States. It will be the second attempt for Villaraigosa, 71, who ran for office in 2018.
“I will run for governor because it has been proven that I know how to solve problems and deliver results in difficult times,” Villaraigosa said on Tuesday morning. it’s a statement. “Our future depends on our will to face our greatest challenges,” added the politician, who headed the Los Angeles City Council between 2005 and 2013. During that time, he says, he managed to reduce violent crime in the city by 48% and helped get the local economy back on track after the severe economic blow of the 2008 crisis.
Before his time on the City Council, Villaraigosa, who was raised by a single mother in East Los Angeles, added to his political career as a local congressman. He arrived at the state House in 1994, elected as a representative of the 45th district. Two years later, he became the Democratic majority leader. On his new campaign page, the former mayor highlights those years as an assemblyman, which allowed him to work alongside members of his party as well as Republicans to pass balanced budgets.
Villaraigosa has not held another elected office in more than 10 years, complicating his quest for California’s most coveted political post. Over the course of this time, the politician has held advisory roles at cryptocurrency companies, companies like Herbalife, and ventures linked to the health sector.
The candidate enters a race that already has several interested parties. Eleni Kounalakis, the lieutenant governor of California, has already expressed her interest in replacing Newsom in Sacramento, the state capital. Other Democrats have also expressed their interest, such as Toni Atkins, the leader of the California Senate; former local treasurer Betty Lee; and school superintendent Tony Thurmond. The strongest candidates in the race could begin to be defined once the 2024 presidential election cycle runs out. One of these could be the current state attorney general, Rob Bonta, who has not made his entry into the campaign official, but has not denied it either.
The former mayor came in third in the 2018 primary, with 13% of the vote. In California, the two most popular names make it to the general ballot, regardless of whether they are candidates from the same party. The governorship was up for grabs between Gavin Newsom, who was then the popular mayor of San Francisco, and John Cox, a businessman and developer, who ran for the Republican side. Cox won 1.7 million votes (25%) in the primary, leaving Villaraigosa, who did not reach 1 million votes, in third place. Newsom swept the election that year with 61% of the vote. He extended his term in 2022 with a 19 percentage point victory over his rival, Brian Dahle.
In 2022, Newsom offered Villaraigosa a position as an advisor on his infrastructure team. The group’s goal was to find large projects that could receive the injection of resources that came from Joe Biden’s ambitious stimulus plan, one of the flagship programs of his Administration. This has not been his only job as an advisor. Barack Obama also named him to his economic transition team, from which the America Fast Forward program derived, which delivered billions of dollars in investments and support to poor people in the South.
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