Candidates for California lieutenant governor are pitching ambitious plans on housing, higher education, climate, immigration and public land, testing how much power they can wring from an office often dismissed as ceremonial.
Candidates for Lt. Governor, from left top, Michael Tubbs, Fiona Ma, Oliver Ma, from left bottom, Gloria Romero, Janelle Kellman, and Josh Fryday in the 2026 election.
California’s lieutenant governor is often dismissed as a ceremonial understudy. But the office comes with seats on influential boards overseeing higher education, public land and the coast — influence that many of the six leading candidates for the state’s No. 2 job say they want to use to shape housing, college affordability, climate policy and the economy. The office is currently held by Eleni Kounalakis, who is termed out.
The lieutenant governor serves as acting governor when the governor is out of state and presides over the state Senate, where the officeholder can cast a tie-breaking vote. The lieutenant governor, like the vice president, is also next in line in case the governor dies or is removed from office. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who held the role for eight years under Gov.
Jerry Brown, famously used his limited powers as acting governor to name the artichoke the state’s vegetable and the avocado as the state fruit. But the lieutenant governor also sits on boards for the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges, giving the office a voice in higher education policy, student housing and tuition debates.
The lieutenant governor also serves on the State Lands Commission and is a nonvoting member of the Coastal Commission, playing a role in land-use policy and protecting the California coast. Among the six leading candidates, state Treasurer Fiona Ma and California Chief Service Officer Josh Fryday have multimillion-dollar war chests and institutional backing from current state officeholders.
Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs has captured the attention of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and is being backed by an independent expenditure committee funded by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and philanthropist Patty Quillin, who is married to Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings. Former Sausalito Mayor Janelle Kellman’s candidacy is heavily focused on climate and energy policy, while civil rights attorney Oliver Ma is the first candidate to ever be endorsed in a statewide race by the California Democratic Socialists of America.
Former state Sen. Gloria Romero is the sole leading Republican in the race and is running on a “golden ticket” alongside gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton. Candidates are listed in order of how much campaign cash they have on hand. There has been no independent polling conducted on the race.
State Treasurer Fiona Ma, 60, has the largest amount of campaign cash on hand, roughly $4.6 million as of late April, and has amassed a lengthy list of endorsements that includes Kounalakis, state Controller Malia Cohen and major labor unions like Laborers’ International Union of North America, the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California and the California Nurses Association. Ma, who was elected to her current post in 2018 and reelected in 2022, has held public office for most of the last two decades, serving as a San Francisco Supervisor, a California Board of Equalization member and in the state Assembly, where she was speaker pro tempore.
As lieutenant governor, she wants to focus on higher education affordability, finding creative ways to drive down the cost of tuition while shoring up the state’s financial aid system in case Pell Grants face cuts by the Trump administration. Ma did not offer any details on how she would do so in an interview.
She also wants to build more housing for faculty and students by utilizing state-owned land — a move she said would prevent students from sleeping in their cars and help public colleges continue to attract talent. Ma said she’s already had success in this area in her current position, using bond revenue through the California School Finance Authority to help fund more than 300 homes at Santa Rosa Junior College.
The next lieutenant governor could be involved in decisions about building student and faculty housing on publicly owned land.
“I understand how to build housing,” she said. “I am a real estate CPA, and I oversee the tax credit and bonds for affordable housing. This is where I’m definitely going to focus. ” Ma said that her experience and the relationships she’s developed from holding elected office for more than 20 years will be the key to using the lieutenant governor’s office as a “bully pulpit” and helping solve the state’s most pressing issues.
California Chief Service Officer and former Novato Mayor Josh Fryday, 45, is the only other candidate in the race with a multimillion-dollar campaign war chest, reporting $2.2 million on hand as of late last month. He’s been endorsed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, former Sen. Barbara Boxer and organizations like the California Teachers Association, California Environmental Voters and the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.
As a member of Newsom’s cabinet, Fryday has overseen volunteer and service efforts in the state, launching the Climate Action Corps and the College Corps. Prior to that, he served as the chief operating officer for NextGen Climate, a climate advocacy nonprofit formed by billionaire philanthropist and gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer. Fryday is also a veteran, having served as a Navy Judge Advocate General officer in Guantanamo Bay.
As lieutenant governor, Fryday wants to help align higher education more with the state’s workforce needs by making California the first state with a universal service program. The initiative would expand on the California Service Corps and create a service pathway in the state’s public colleges that would help them graduate debt-free and with work experience. The program would also create apprenticeships for careers that don’t require four-year degrees.
Fryday did not provide any details on how the state would pay for the program. Fryday has also put building more housing at the cornerstone of his campaign. He wants to push public universities and community colleges to build housing on their land and plans to use his role on the State Lands Commission to use public land to build housing near jobs and transit.
In an interview, Fryday emphasized the need for new leaders in California “who can approach problems differently and bring people together differently. ” With his roots in the climate movement, Fryday said he’d use that credibility to help connect those in the environmental community with housing advocates, who he said are frequently pitted against each other in Sacramento.
“We need a new generation of leaders who are going to demand more and deliver more for people,” Fryday said. Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, 35, said he isn’t running for lieutenant governor to “be something,” but to “do something. ” Tubbs was the city’s first Black mayor and the youngest mayor in the nation at 26 when he was elected in 2016. Tubbs gained a national profile as mayor when Stockton launched a guaranteed income program.
He also frequently touts the city’s success in reducing crime and driving down homicides during his tenure.
“The way I measure success isn’t necessarily in reelection, it’s in what did I get done? ” Tubbs said.
“Because oftentimes the things that need to get done haven’t been done because they’re politically difficult because some people are going to be upset. ” Tubbs is focused on affordability in both the cost of housing and higher education.
He’s pledged not to vote for tuition increases in his role on the public college and university commissions and wants to use “innovative financing” by partnering with private developers that could generate revenue from building student and faculty housing on state-owned land. Tubbs also wants to connect CalFresh enrollment to California’s financial aid system to help students who struggle with food insecurity.
The former Stockton mayor plans to leverage the bully pulpit of the role to push for housing reform — an effort he said includes getting on the “legislature’s nerves” and testifying on housing legislation. He previously testified in support of SB 79, a bill from state Sen. Scott Wiener that was recently signed into law and will make it easier to build multifamily housing near transit stops.
Tubbs said the bill was controversial and he was warned by some not to testify in favor of it while he was running for office — a move that he said demonstrates the type of “political leadership” he plans to bring to the lieutenant governor’s office. Tubbs is currently a special adviser to Newsom on economic mobility and is the founder and director of the nonprofit End Poverty in California.
He has $671,550 in his campaign war chest as of late April. His endorsements include Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia, Sam Liccardo and Lateefah Simon and organizations like California YIMBY, the SEIU California State Council and the Working Families Party. Former Sausalito mayor and environmental attorney Janelle Kellman, 52, said that the lieutenant governor’s office is a “massively underused instrument to deliver clean energy and grid reform.
” Kellman said she wants to help cut electricity costs by 25% and tie homeowners’ wildfire mitigation efforts to lower premiums. But some of those proposals would depend on powers the lieutenant governor does not directly have. The office does not set electricity rates, regulate utilities or control insurance premiums, and Kellman did not explain what authority she would use to achieve those goals.
Kellman also said she wants to require large businesses such as AI data centers to reduce energy use during peak times and take wildfire hardening efforts for the grid, such as putting power lines underground, out of the utility profit model. Kellman also wants the state to invest in more wildfire prevention efforts and reward homeowners who create defensible space around their properties.
The environmental attorney, who also founded the climate resiliency nonprofit Center for Sea Level Solutions, said she sees the State Lands and Coastal commissions as the “last line of defense on some of our offshore oil and gas drilling. ” “I want to make sure that our programs and policies are delivering the results that we say they will,” Kellman said.
“I want to know where the taxpayer dollars are going, and I want to make sure that philosophically we are aligned in making sure that we’re leaving the planet in a better place than where we are today. ” On higher education, Kellman wants to make community colleges tuition free and expand vocational and apprenticeship programs that meet California’s workforce needs.
She said the state could close the gap by redirecting K-14 resources, including Proposition 98 funds that require California to meet a minimum annual guarantee for public education funding. But the governor and state Legislature, not the lieutenant governor, control those budget decisions. Kellman also supports building student housing on public land.
She has been endorsed by the California Legislative Jewish Caucus and elected officials like state Assemblymember Damon Connolly and Marin County Supervisors Stephanie Moulton-Peters, Dennis Rodoni and Mary Sackett. She currently has $147,346 in campaign cash on hand as of late April.
Civil rights attorney Oliver Ma, 28, who is not related to Fiona Ma, sees the lieutenant governor role as a way to continue fighting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, make housing more affordable and push universities to divest “from genocide and apartheid in Palestine. ” Ma said his early years shaped the work he does today. He immigrated with his family to the United States at age 7 and often had to advocate for his parents, who didn’t speak English.
When he was in middle school, he said his grandmother was detained by federal agents, and he was the one in charge of making phone calls and filling out the forms to get her out. Ma most recently worked at the American Civil Liberties Union, where he helped run the rapid response network in Kern County. Before that, he worked in eviction defense, organizing tenant unions and representing families against their landlords.
“When other candidates are holding corporate fundraisers, I am in an immigration detention center trying to reunite families,” Ma said. “When other candidates are meeting with lobbyists, I am organizing a tenant union. And I think it’s that kind of experience, fighting on the front lines, that California really needs, defending our state in Trump 2.0.
” As lieutenant governor, Ma wants to work with lawmakers on legislation to hold ICE accountable, shut down for-profit detention centers and support community rapid response networks. He supports single-payer healthcare in California and has backed the California Nurses Association CalCare program. Ma also wants to make public universities tuition-free and said the money would come from divesting university endowments related to fossil fuels, for-profit prisons and genocide.
Ma is the first statewide candidate ever endorsed by the California Democratic Socialists of America. He’s also endorsed by Neel Sannappa, who is the progressive caucus chair of the Democratic Party, the United Auto Workers and the Asian American Democratic Club. Ma currently has $123,117 in campaign cash on hand as of late April.
Former Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, 70, who left the party and registered as a Republican in 2024, said the primary role of the lieutenant governor should be education.
“My reputation was really on education on school choice and reforms, and that is where I had the biggest break from the Democrats even back then,” Romero said of her background. “So, it made sense to me because the lieutenant governor is and should be the most prolific voice on education in California, higher ed specifically.
” Romero said she wants to create a pipeline to end the disconnect between TK-12 and higher education and to ensure that incoming freshmen are ready for college. She provided no details on how she would do this. Romero said she supports greater school choice for parents and the abolition of the federal Department of Education.
In the lieutenant governor’s role on the State Lands Commission and Coastal Commission, Romero said she would support new oil exploration and clearing underbrush to prevent wildfires. She disputed that climate change is the main driver of California’s worsening wildfires. The first time the governor leaves the state, she said she would call two extraordinary sessions of the state Legislature — one on waste, fraud and abuse and the other on combating human trafficking.
The lieutenant governor would have that power while serving as acting governor, though acting governors rarely use it. Romero is running for lieutenant governor on a “golden ticket” alongside Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Steve Hilton and two other GOP statewide candidates. While the lieutenant governor is elected separately from the governor, she said they wanted to highlight that it isn’t about one person, but rather an agenda.
Romero has been endorsed by the California Republican Party and Reform California — a grassroots organization led by state Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego. As of late April, she had $66,302 in campaign cash.
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