Your guide to California’s lieutenant governor primary race
There are five contestants making a serious shot in the race to occupy the state’s second-highest executive office: lieutenant governor.
It’s been a relatively sleepy race for all but the most avid political junkies. Four Democrats and one Republican are jostling to become one of the top two candidates to emerge from the June 2 primary. (The Sacramento Bee is not including candidates who don’t have a website or haven’t raised at least $10,000).
Current Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis is currently serving her second of two terms, meaning she’s not eligible to run again.
The closest thing to a frontrunner might be California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, whose decades in Democratic politics have translated into a cash and endorsement advantage, including backing from Kounalakis. But that might have shifted this week when another Democrat, Josh Fryday, won the endorsement of the most prominent politician in the state: Gov. Gavin Newsom.
There’s been almost no polling over the race. One January survey conducted by David Binder, a prominent California pollster, found that the race was “defined by low name recognition for all candidates,” with eight in ten voters having no opinion of Ma despite the fact that she was the best known candidate of the group.
The job is mostly symbolic unless disaster strikes. The lieutenant governor assumes the top job if the governor is incapacitated or dies. When the governor of California leaves the state, the lieutenant governor technically serves as acting governor. The lieutenant governor presides and can cast tie-breaking votes in the state Senate, though that’s exceedingly rare in California given Democrats’ legislative supermajority.
The lieutenant governor also serves on boards overseeing the state’s public colleges, universities, and community colleges as well as the State Lands Commission and California Commission for Economic Development.
Despite the limitations of the role, candidates are touting their ideas for California policy overhauls on everything from clean energy to universal basic income.
Who are the candidates?
Josh Fryday (D) - Fryday is an attorney who served in the U.S. Navy’s judicial arm, where he represented detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and coordinated disaster relief in Japan after the 2011 tsunami. In 2015, he won a seat on the city council of Novato, a city in Marin County, and was later selected as mayor. In 2019, Newsom appointed Fryday to become Chief Service Officer of California, a Cabinet-level position focused on overseeing the state’s volunteer programs. He helped launch the California Climate Action Corps in 2020 and expanded the state’s overall service corps.
Fryday’s platform calls for creating a “universal service option” for all Californians as a way to provide job training and expand debt-free pathways to college. The Democrat also wants to speed up permitting for clean energy projects and housing, increase teacher pay and build one million new homes on unutilized public lots.
Janelle Kellman (D) - Kellman is an attorney specializing in environmental issues and a lifelong athlete, including stints on Yale’s field hockey and lacrosse teams. Kellman was elected to Sausalito City Council in 2020 and selected as mayor two years later. In that role, she declared a state of emergency after a fire broke out at a homeless encampment in a city park and settled a lawsuit with a nonprofit to clear and rehouse residents. She also helped orchestrate the production and distribution of plastic face shields in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kellman argues her campaign is grounded in “real world experience, not talking points.” She’s calling for cutting electricity prices by 25% by reducing use during peak hours, investing in wildfire prevention to lower home insurance costs and zeroing out the cost of community college tuition beyond the California College Promise program.
Fiona Ma (D) - Ma is the child of Chinese immigrants who was first elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2001, serving through 2006. She focused on growing small businesses, banning dangerous chemicals from children’s toys, and cracking down on massage parlors that were involved in human trafficking. Ma went on to serve three terms in the State Assembly before winning a seat on the Board of Equalization, and, in 2018, winning the election for State Treasurer, where she oversees state spending, investment portfolios and bond financing. In 2021, a former staffer filed a lawsuit accusing Ma of sexual harassment and wrongful termination for refusing her advances; Ma denied the claims, and the state paid $350,000 to settle the case in 2024.
Ma casts herself as a “proven problem solver” who will bring her financial acumen as a CPA and state treasurer to bear on challenges facing the state. Her website says she will work to “grow our economy, attract investment, and create high-quality jobs.” She’s also noted she would be the first Asian lieutenant governor in state history.
Gloria Romero (R) - Romero grew up in Barstow with four siblings; her father worked on railroads and her mother had a sixth-grade education. Romero has a PhD in psychology from the University of California, Riverside, and went on to become a professor. She was elected to the Assembly in 1998 representing parts of Los Angeles, and the state Senate in 2001, where she served as Democrats’ majority leader from 2005 to 2008 — the first woman to hold the post. After she left the Legislature, Romero focused on education, advocating for charter schools and merit-based school standards. She formally joined the Republican Party in 2024, saying Democrats had lost touch with working class voters.
Romero has made higher education a centerpiece of her campaign. On her website, Romero says she’ll “fight to restore merit in admissions, protect academic standards, and stop setting students up for failure.” She’s also argued community colleges need stronger accountability and better integration into K-12 schools. Romero has vowed to cut through red tape on land use, including working with partners to uncover “untapped energy reserves.” She is running on an informal slate with former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a candidate for governor.
Michael Tubbs (D) - Tubbs was born to a teenage mother in South Stockton. His father has been incarcerated all of his life, and the Democrat has discussed growing up in poverty. After graduating from Stanford, Tubbs was elected to the Stockton City Council at age 21 and mayor at age 26, making him the youngest mayor ever of any major U.S. city. His youth and championing of a universal basic income pilot program drew national attention. Tubbs lost to a Republican candidate in 2020, a situation he blamed in part on a social media page that attacked him with unproven allegations of corruption. Tubbs now serves as a special advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom on economic mobility.
Tubbs says he’s offering a “bold, innovative vision” to address California’s affordability crisis. He points to experience building affordable housing on state land in Stockton and the UBI experiment as proof of his willingness to think creatively about challenges facing the state. Tubbs says he’ll use the lieutenant governor’s seats on various boards to reject potential tuition increases, fight efforts from oil companies to drill offshore, and make the bodies more transparent.
Who’s funding the race?
A full picture of campaign funding for the race won’t emerge until April 23, when candidates are set to disclose all of their fundraising and spending activities so far this year. But there are some clear trends that have emerged from the available information, which captures donations larger than $1,000 made since March 4, and above $5,000 since Jan. 1.
Ma held a commanding lead in cash in the bank headed into this year, with nearly $5 million available to spend. That’s in part because she transferred contributions from her last run for state treasurer in 2022 and because she’s been raising money for her current campaign since 2023. Ma raised at least $381,000 from Jan. 1 through March; her recent donors include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the insurance company Geico, and a number of presidents and CEOs of small to midsize businesses.
Fryday started the year with $1.9 million in the bank and has raised at least $363,000 from Jan. 1 through March. Some of his notable donors include the California Teachers Association, FOX Television Group CEO Gary Newman and Sacramento Kings co-owner Mark Friedman.
Tubbs began the year with nearly $745,000 and raised at least $122,000 in the first quarter of this year. His recent donors include the California Faculty Association, the K-12 advocacy group Education Reform Now and podcaster Tommy Vietor, a former spokesperson for President Barack Obama who co-hosts Pod Save America.
Kellman entered the year with nearly $58,000 and has raised at least $101,000 since then. Her donors are mostly clustered in the Bay Area and include Akash Jain, an executive at the tech company Palantir and Luke Dunnington, president of the energy infrastructure company Intersect.
Romero got a late start in fundraising, having only entered the race in January. She raised at least $93,000 in the first quarter of this year. More than half of that came from a contribution she made to her own campaign.
Who else is supporting the candidates?
Ma’s deep roots in Democratic state politics have earned her some prominent endorsements, including from outgoing Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and State Controller Malia Cohen. She’s also earned the backing of more than three dozen Assemblymembers, nine state senators, and 14 of California’s Congressional representatives. At the state party convention in February, she won 49% of delegates, compared to 24% for Tubbs and 21% for Fryday.
Ma has also picked up the most union endorsements, including the California Federation of Labor Unions, United Auto Workers and Peace Officers Research Association of California.
Tubbs’ endorsements include California SEIU, Working Families Party and the California Abundance Network as well as Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, three Congressional representatives and former California Sen. Laphonza Butler.
Newsom’s endorsement of Fryday could give the candidate a major boost in the crowded field. Fryday is also backed by the California Teachers Association, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, and former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, among others.
Kellman has the backing of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, a trio of current and former Bay Area state lawmakers and several Marin supervisors.
Romero was endorsed by California Republicans at their convention in April.
