Democratic Senate leader Toni Atkins announces 2026 California governor campaign

State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, announced Friday that she will run for California governor in the 2026 election.

Atkins on Thursday filed paperwork stating her intent to join the race, and she made her official announcement at a Friday event in San Diego. She emphasized her humble beginnings as a miner’s daughter from southwestern Virginia who grew up in a home without running water.

“In 2026, we have the opportunity to elect a governor who understands, and has lived, the challenges facing Californians struggling to get by and trying to get ahead,” Atkins said. “Someone who got free breakfasts at school and went to church camp on a scholarship. Whose parents never had time off and always had a doctor’s bill overdue.”

Atkins will join Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and State Superintendent of Instruction Tony Thurmond in the campaign to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term. Attorney General Rob Bonta has also said he’s considering a gubernatorial bid.

The Pro Tem will term out of the Legislature this year. She is handing over her Senate leadership role to Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, on Feb. 5.

“I am ready to be governor,” Atkins said on Friday. “I have stood eye to eye with two governors as a leader of a co-equal branch of government— the only woman and first person in 150 years to lead both houses of the California Legislature.”

Secretary of State Shirley Weber introduced Atkins at her announcement, citing the Pro Tem’s background as the basis for her support.

“I need someone to fight for us,” Weber said. “Who has the values ... that are not just learned in a book but learned in life. I need someone who understands what it was to be poor and proud at the same time.”

History-making politician

Atkins was elected to the state Senate in 2016, and has served as Senate Pro Tem since 2018. She is the first openly gay person to serve as the head of the Senate, and the first woman. Before that, she was a member of the state Assembly and the first openly gay Assembly Speaker when she held the position from 2014-2016.

She served on the San Diego City Council from 2000 to 2008, after moving to Southern California in the 1980s.

“If someone had told me when I first came to California that I would be here today, I probably would have laughed out loud at how crazy that sounded,” Atkins said on Friday. “I had always been too different. Too poor. Too country. Too gay.”

If elected, Atkins would be California’s first LGBTQ governor — but she’s already made history for that role, even if only on a technicality.

In 2014, as Speaker of the Assembly, Atkins served as acting governor for 10 hours when then-Gov. Jerry Brown and then-Lt. Gov Newsom were both out of the state, as well as then-Senate Pro Tempore and current Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. This made her the first LGBTQ person in the governor’s seat.

She made history again last summer when she signed three bills into law as acting governor — the first openly LGBTQ person to do so — while Newsom and Kounalakis were both outside state lines.

“I’m thrilled to step into the governor’s shoes,” Atkins said last July. “Though I have better shoes than him.”

She told the Associated Press in November that she was “interested in looking at that possibility” of a gubernatorial run. A few days later at the California Democratic Party fall convention, Atkins told The Sacramento Bee she has the necessary experience for such a role.

“Governors work with legislators to get things done,” she said.

“I’ve done the policy work, I’ve done the budget work. And it really is a unique experience to be able to work with those different parties — the speaker, the pro tem, the governor. I feel like I’ve got experience with each. And for me, experience matters.”