LOS ANGELES (CN) — Antonio Villaraigosa, who served as mayor of Los Angeles between 2005 and 2013, launched his bid for California Governor on Tuesday for an election that will take place two years from now in 2026.
In a press release and brief announcement video, the 71-year-old Villaraigosa touted himself as a “problem solver.”
“I know we can do big things for California, because I’ve done them before,” Villaraigosa said in the statement. “As governor, I’ll balance the state budget, make sure our neighborhoods are safe and our kids have great schools. I’ll bring down costs for small businesses and middle-class families.”
Although the 2026 race feels like an eon away, Villaraigosa joins an already crowded field of Democrats vying for the job that includes Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, State Senate leader Toni Atkins, state schools superintendent Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee. Attorney General Rob Bonta is also reportedly considering a run for governor.
No high-profile Republican has declared their candidacy. Villaraigosa is currently the only notable Southern California politician in the race, which may be an advantage in the state’s top-two primary.
That was the case in 2018 as well, when Villaraigosa finished a distant third in the primary, well behind Republican John Cox and Gavin Newsom, who went on to win the election.
Born Antonio Villar — he later merged his last name with that of his wife, Corina Raigosa — he grew up in East Los Angeles and was raised by a single mother. He attended a Catholic High School and a community college before transferring to UCLA, and would later graduate from the People’s College of Law, a unaccredited law school that produced a slew of notable Latino politicians. He became a labor organizer, working for a time for the teacher’s union, with whom he would later feud with.
Villaraigosa’s rise through the ranks of Southern California politics was meteoric: he was elected to the state assembly in 1994, majority leader in 1996, speaker of the assembly in 1998 and LA City Council in 2003, after unseating an incumbent, a fairly rare occurrence back then. Though he lost to Jim Hahn in his first race for LA mayor in 2001, he won a rematch in 2005, becoming the city’s first Latino mayor.
His eight-year tenure began with a burst of energy and promise — he pledged to take over the LA school system, to hire 1,000 cops and to plant a million trees — but many of his plans were thwarted.
A lawsuit stopped his plan to take over the schools, which are controlled by an elected board that represents an area larger than the city of LA. Villaraigosa then shifted to a strategy of campaigning for school board members to push through reforms. At this, he was more successful, at least for a while, winning a majority large enough to hire Superintendent John Deasy, a leader of what was then called the education reform movement.
He never did plant a million trees or hire a thousand cops, though he did manage planting 400,000 trees, and did increase LAPD staff levels to more than 10,000 sworn officers, the largest in its history. And he helped pass Measure R, a half-cent sales tax hike to fund the construction of subway and light rail lines, kicking off a public transit boom that continues now.
But his term was marked by distractions — most notably, his affair with a Spanish language television reporter and a subsequent divorce. There was also a perception that Villaraigosa lacked follow through and that his management skills didn’t match his campaigning skills. When his successor, Eric Garcetti, promised a “back to basics” approach, it felt, to some, like a rejection of Villaraigosa’s bolder yet messier term.
Since leaving office, Villaraigosa has worked as an advisor to Herbalife, a multi-level marketing dietary supplement company, and for the lobbying firm Mercury. In 2022, Newsom hired him as an infrastructure advisor.
Villaraigosa’s campaign announcement gave little indication on where he stands on some of the newer issues that have arisen in the 11 years since he last held public office, including how best to deal with mentally ill homeless people, and how much the government should cater to the wishes of the trans community. Villaraigosa himself did not return a phone call requesting an interview.