LOS ANGELES — Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is making a second run for California governor, a 2026 comeback bid in which the Democrat is staking out a pragmatic lane, contending the state needs someone willing to make difficult — and even unpopular — decisions.
"I’ve not been afraid to take on the tough issues,” Villaraigosa said ahead of his announcement Tuesday, which he shared exclusively with POLITICO.
While other Democrats in recent elections have raced to the left, Villaraigosa is eschewing an ideological pitch for a practical one. He signaled a willingness to buck party orthodoxy in Sacramento. “I'm not looking to be the most popular guy in town. I have a record that demonstrates that I've been willing to take on those tough issues.”
“I'm not running for anything else,” added Villaraigosa, who is 71. “So a popularity contest is not what I'm looking for. You're never gonna see Antonio Villaraigosa — candidate for president or vice president. I want to be a damn good governor.”
He has been teasing a potential bid for months, with allies pointing to favorable polling to demonstrate a path to victory and the former mayor appearing at political events for contenders for other offices, most recently Rep. Adam Schiff’s likely successful run for U.S. Senate.
Villaraigosa ran for governor in 2018 as a business-friendly moderate. He tacked to the right of front-runner Gavin Newsom, then the lieutenant governor, by deriding single-payer healthcare – a litmus test for progressives – as “snake oil.” He envisioned a path to victory by tapping into vote-rich Los Angeles and mobilizing Latinos throughout the state, especially in the Central Valley.
But the strategy fell short, as he struggled to compete with Newsom’s massive fundraising advantage and low turnout among his targeted voters. He finished a distant third in the primary, boxed out by Newsom and John Cox, the lesser-known Republican businessman who, thanks to a late endorsement from then-President Donald Trump, consolidated the GOP vote.
Now Villaraigosa is launching into a field with no clear front-runner in a state that has struggled with homelessness, lack of affordable housing, higher unemployment and an increasingly dour electorate that’s grown tired of more government spending without results. Adding to the uncertainty is November’s presidential race, where a victory by Trump would dramatically change the environment in California, where Democrats are pledging to again become a bulwark against Trumpism and his policies on everything from taxes and immigration to climate change .
Other Democrats in the race include Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, the first to declare her candidacy, state Sen. Toni Atkins, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Controller Betty Yee. Attorney General Rob Bonta is weighing a bid of his own, along with a pair of Republicans including Southern California Sheriff Chad Bianco. Villaraigosa is the highest-profile Latino to officially declare a bid, though Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has approached political advisers about standing up a campaign.
Villaraigosa came out for Vice President Kamala Harris moments after Biden exited the race on Sunday, and stressed he expects her to win. But he suggested there was no better foil to Trumpism than himself, again leaning into his resume.
“Make no mistake about it — if people are looking for someone to take on Donald Trump, who better than a civil rights leader who, his entire life, has taken on right-wing politicians and ideologues? Who better than a labor leader who understands the challenges that working people have in buying groceries and putting food on the table,” he said.
In a video accompanying his entry into the race, Villaraigosa says the state needs a “problem solver” with bipartisan credentials. He touted his past support for law enforcement, improvement of city schools and closing big budget shortfalls during the Great Recession.
His back-to-basics approach focuses on balancing the state budget, improving public safety and education and bringing down costs for small businesses and middle-income earners.
“People are more interested in what you're going to do for them,” Villaraigosa said. “And the best way to know what you can do for them is to demonstrate what you've done before.”
Villaraigosa also nodded to the Democratic Party’s growing problems with lower-wage workers and people without college degrees — including white and Latino men. “If we're bleeding white working-class and, increasingly, Latino working families, it's in no small part because we're not focused on an economy that's not working for middle-class families,” he said.
A former teachers’ union organizer and president of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU, Villaraigosa’s political resume includes stints in the state Assembly (including two years as Assembly Speaker) and on the Los Angeles City Council. He often tells his own redemption story after being expelled from Cathedral High School, a private Catholic school where he led student walkouts, for fighting. He enrolled at Roosevelt, a public school, cut class and dropped out, and then returned to the classroom, attending East Los Angeles Community College and then finishing his degree at UCLA.
He mentioned his early work in the Assembly on gun control, including helping pass California's assault weapons ban, and efforts to expand LGBTQ+ rights. But he hurtled to national prominence when he was elected Los Angeles’ mayor in 2005 — the first Latino to hold the post in more than 130 years.
As mayor, Villaraigosa helped usher in a revitalization of downtown Los Angeles and championed a sweeping expansion of the region’s transportation system. But another ambitious initiative — the takeover of the city’s public school system — was stymied by the courts and his rift with teachers unions endured long after he left City Hall .
In Los Angeles, he also cultivated a man-about-town persona, highly visible in the city and at popular eateries, slapping backs like a garrulous pol.
His political image was also tainted by an affair with a television journalist, which led to the dissolution of his decades-long marriage.
In the interview, he alluded generally to missteps, saying “I've made my mistakes. Let's be clear about that.” But, he added, “I try to learn from them. I come to this job with my eyes wide open, but understanding how difficult it will be to take on some of these challenges.”
After leaving City Hall in 2013 with, as he told news reporters at the time, “ no money, no house, no car ,” Villaraigosa threw himself into the private sector. He consulted for businesses such as Herbalife, a multilevel marketing nutritional supplement company which some critics have called a pyramid scheme, and Banc of California. That work for both companies drew criticism in his 2018 run.
More recently, he has worked as a paid advisor to Coinbase, the cryptocurrency trading platform, as well as a partner at the Los Angeles office of the political affairs firm, Actum.
But government work remained alluring – and he completed a stint alongside his former rival, Newsom, as the state’s infrastructure czar , where he traveled the state and met with dozens of officials, including the Democratic legislative leaders.
“I also met with the Republican leaders and people were surprised,” he said. “They said, ‘Well, we have a two-thirds [majority] vote’ in Sacramento.” I said, I know but … infrastructure and middle-class jobs isn’t a partisan issue, it ought to be a bipartisan issue.”
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