State Senate leader Toni Atkins joins 2026 race for California governor

California state Sen. Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat, announced a 2026 run for California governor Friday morning, making the legislative leader the latest entrant in an increasingly crowded race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom after he is forced out of office by term limits.

Atkins serves as Senate president pro tem and is a former Assembly speaker. She is the first female and first out LGBTQ+ president pro tem in state history and also the first legislator since 1871 to hold both leadership posts.

She is terming out in the Legislature and had been widely expected to make a bid for governor.

Atkins’ experience running the Assembly and the Senate makes her “uniquely prepared” to lead the state, as does a personal narrative that’s taken her from a childhood in poverty in rural Appalachia to the corridors of California power, she said.

“I don’t really fit the mold of past governors or even some of the fellow candidates,” she explained. “Clearly I’m not a man. I wasn’t born into wealth or privilege. And I wasn’t appointed to my first big political office. My story is much more like the Californians that I meet every day.”

Atkins’ time as the Senate leader ends in February when state Sen. Mike McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat, takes over the post.

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.

She touted the fact that she has “negotiated eight on-time budgets with two different governors,” saying she’d been able “to go toe-to-toe and support the programs and policies that matter most in people’s everyday lives.”

Atkins has been a champion of affordable housing while serving in Sacramento. Her spouse, Jennifer LeSar, also has worked for two successful housing and economic firms while Atkins has been in office.

Announcing her candidacy in a bright pink suit before a crowd gathered at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, Atkins emphasized her blue-collar roots and her feminist identity. She described growing up as a miner’s child in West 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 feminist women’s health clinic.

Atkins has nearly $2.3 million in a campaign committee for lieutenant governor that she opened several years ago, according to filing records with the California secretary of state’s office, and will be able to use those funds for her gubernatorial campaign.