Harris won’t run for gov, but California’s glass ceiling still needs breaking | Opinion
Now that former Vice President Kamala Harris has finally announced she’s not running for governor of California in 2026, the state can start looking at the real candidates.
And while I was generally against a Harris For Governor campaign, which I saw as a transparent attempt at giving the former Veep a consolation prize for her 2024 presidential campaign loss, there actually was one thing I really liked about Harris: Her gender.
It’s beyond time a woman ran California, and next year’s ballot will finally have some truly viable options.
Right now — as will be the case still, come 2026 — Californians are looking for a leader of the left’s resistance to President Donald Trump’s increasingly fascist federal hellscape. We need a Californian to fight for our state’s strongly-held principles of diversity and equity, while keeping a tight rein on the state’s economy and budget.
I think that role can best be played by the state’s first female governor. And beyond that, it’s about damn time.
California, the most liberal state in the nation, has yet to ever have a female governor. Neighboring Oregon has had three, including current Gov. Tina Kotek, and nearby Arizona boasts a staggering five, including current Democratic governor Katie Hobbs. (In fact, Arizona is tied historically with New Hampshire, whose current state leader is also a woman, Republican governor Kelly Ayotte.)
Second, I’m just not wildly enthusiastic about any of the male candidates, which most notably include former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles mayor Anthony Villaraigosa and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, the latter of which elicits an almost-painful eyeroll every time I hear his name.
Their candidacies inspire in me, at best, a deeply non-commital “meh,” though I realize the odds are unacceptably high that I’ll have to support one of them come next November.
As for the five women on the ballot, there are two particularly exciting options.
Why two? The process of elimination, mostly.
UCLA senior Carolina Buhler, while making an admirable attempt, hasn’t a Bomb Pop’s chance in July of actually winning. The other two I’m counting out are perhaps more controversial to say so: California Democratic Party vice chair Betty Yee and current Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.
Yee just doesn’t have the public name recognition it takes to make a serious run at the position — a problem that plagues most of the field, to be honest. But no one wants the first reaction of voters upon hearing their name to be “Who?”
Kounalakis, for her part, has simply failed to distinguish herself in any way as lieutenant governor. Nor has she made any attempt to extricate her reputation from her family’s deep pockets — her father is the obnoxiously wealthy Sacramento developer, Angelo Tsakopoulos.
Kounalakis may also now regret getting into the race so early. She was the first to announce, all the way back in 2023, and might have been hoping for a Harris run as a way to quietly and gracefully bow out of contention. (Yee also announced in 2023 on the heels of Kounalakis, I might add.)
That leaves the only two truly promising female candidates: Former U.S. representative from California’s 47th congressional district, Katie Porter; and former President pro tempore of the California Senate, Toni Atkins.
And if the election were tomorrow, Porter would have my vote.
I was impressed by her run for Senate last year; Porter has a reputation for taking on tough fights, grilling CEOs and billionaires from the congressional dais — and her frequent use of a small whiteboard was such a viral social media hit to the point where Porter once told us her office keeps a supply of signed ones to hand out to fans.
“In Congress, I held the Trump administration’s feet to the fire when they hurt Americans. As governor, I won’t ever back down when Trump hurts Californians — whether he’s holding up disaster relief, attacking our rights or our communities, or screwing over working families to benefit himself and his cronies,” Porter said in her candidacy announcement video last March.
I believe she has grit to take on Trump, and I hope donors of all sizes will believe it, too.
Atkins, meanwhile, suffers from the same lack of public name recognition that others in this race do, but her credentials are even more impressive than Porter’s. Atkins was previously the California State Assembly majority leader from 2012 to 2014 and then the 69th speaker of the State Assembly, from 2014 to 2016. She represented San Diego’s 39th State Senate district from 2016 to 2024, and was the first woman and LGBTQ+ person to lead both chambers of the state legislature. She is a staunch supporter of women’s reproductive and abortion rights, and worked in the California Legislature to carry bills that made it easier to build affordable housing.
“You shouldn’t have to be a millionaire to make it in California,” she told CalMatters in 2024. “You should only have to have a dream and people who care enough to help you reach it. Let’s achieve that dream together.”
Undoubtedly the race will be influenced by who gets the money and support from Harris’ would-be backers, and who will get the endorsement of California heavyweights like Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Newsom. Yes, who gets the insider support will matter, but don’t count out any candidate who manages to inspire the people.
We may be more than 10 months away from the primary, but the race has well and truly started.
A Harris run would have carried the baggage of the past at a time when this state and nation are craving change. For California, there’s no more important change, both in symbolism and substance, than finally being led by a woman.
This story was originally published July 30, 2025 at 3:34 PM.
