Antonio Villaraigosa

Office sought: Governor
Party: Democratic
Ballot designation: Former mayor of Los Angeles and Assembly speaker

Background

Biography. Email editor@ballotpedia.org to notify us of updates to this biography. A graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and People’s College of Law, Villaraigosa worked as a union organizer after his graduation, working with the Service Employees International Union and United Teachers Los Angeles and serving as president of the American Federation of Government Employees and the Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union . Villaraigosa was elected to the California State Assembly in 1994 and as the Speaker of the Assembly in 1997. He also worked in Los Angeles municipal government, winning election to the city council in 2003 and as mayor in 2005. [1]

Prior offices and election history

2026

See also: California gubernatorial election, 2026 California gubernatorial election, 2026 (June 2 top-two primary) General election The primary will occur on June 2, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary. Nonpartisan primary election Nonpartisan primary for Governor of California The following candidates are running in the primary for Governor of California on June 2, 2026. Candidate Akinyemi Agbede (D) Mohammad Arif (D) Submit photo James Athans Jr. (R) Submit photo Larry D. Azevedo (D) Submit photo Naomi Bar-Lev (No party preference) Xavier Becerra (D) Chad Bianco (R) Carolina Buhler (D) Submit photo Joseph Cabrera (No party preference) Submit photo Elaine Culotti (No party preference) Submit photo Louis De Barraicua (D) Patricia De Luca Basualdo (R) Submit photo LivingForGod DeMott (No party preference) Submit photo Randeep Dhillon (R) Submit photo Sophia Edum-a-Sam (D) Serge Fiankan (No party preference) Submit photo Lukasz Filinski (No party preference) Max Fomin (No party preference) Derek Grasty (D) Don Grundmann (No party preference) Submit photo Jon Henderson (No party preference) Lewis Herms (No party preference) Submit photo Rafael Hernandez (R) Steve Hilton (R) Joel Jacob (D) Submit photo Dawit Kellel (No party preference) Submit photo Gary Kidgell (D) Anne Komarovsk (No party preference) Submit photo Alicia Lapp (R) Submit photo Matthew Levy (D) Submit photo Duane Loynes Jr. (No party preference) Matt Mahan (D) Amanda Martin (No party preference) Submit photo Brent Maupin (No party preference) Daniel Mercuri (No party preference) Submit photo Leo Naranjo IV (R) Tim Nelson (R) Mauro Alberto Orozco (No party preference) Thunder Parley (D) Katie Porter (D) Raji Rab (D) Submit photo Satish Rao (D) Ramsey Robinson (Peace and Freedom Party) Reza Safarnejad (No party preference) Submit photo Sam Sandak (No party preference) Christine Sarmiento (No party preference) Frederic Schultz (No party preference) Barack D. Obama Shaw (D) Submit photo Scott Shields (D) Submit photo Gretha Solórzano (R) Thomas Steyer (D) Eric Swalwell (D) (Unofficially withdrew) Tony Thurmond (D) Submit photo Margaret Trowe (No party preference) Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Tom Woodard (L) Betty Yee (D) (Unofficially withdrew) Nancy Young (No party preference) Leo Zacky (R) Submit photo Erin Zezulak (D) Submit photo David Zickefoose (R) Butch Ware (G) (Write-in) There are no incumbents in this race. = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. Withdrawn or disqualified candidates Ché Ahn (R) Leonard Jackson (No party preference) Kyle Langford (R) Ebony Taylor (R) Toni Atkins (D) Sharifah Hardie (R) Eleni Kounalakis (D) Ethan Agarwal (D) Brandon Jones (R) Jesse Alberti (No party preference) Javen Allen (No party preference) Nicholas Thompson (L) George Slivka (D) Jon Slavet (R) Tony Fitzpatrick (No party preference) Ian Charles Calderon (D) Michael Younger (D)

2026 — Endorsements

Villaraigosa received the following endorsements. To send us additional endorsements, click here . Mayor Karen Bass (Nonpartisan) CalMatters Voter Guide (Sway voting group by CalMatters) California Building and Construction Trades Council California Labor Federation’s Voting Group (Sway voting group by California Labor Federation) California State Building and Construction Trades Council’s Voting Group (Sway voting group by California State Building and Construction Trades Council) International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers & Pipe Trades KQED Voter Guide (Sway voting group by KQED) Peace Officers’ Research Association of California Union Yes San Diego’s Voting Group (Sway voting group by Union Yes San Diego) iVoterGuide California (Sway voting group by iVoterGuide)

2018

See also: California gubernatorial election, 2018 General election General election for Governor of California Gavin Newsom defeated John Cox in the general election for Governor of California on November 6, 2018. Candidate % Votes ✔ Gavin Newsom (D) 61.9 7,721,410 John Cox (R) 38.1 4,742,825 There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source Total votes: 12,464,235 (100.00% precincts reporting) = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. Nonpartisan primary election Nonpartisan primary for Governor of California The following candidates ran in the primary for Governor of California on June 5, 2018. Candidate % Votes ✔ Gavin Newsom (D) 33.7 2,343,792 ✔ John Cox (R) 25.4 1,766,488 Antonio Villaraigosa (D) 13.3 926,394 Travis Allen (R) 9.5 658,798 John Chiang (D) 9.4 655,920 Delaine Eastin (D) 3.4 234,869 Amanda Renteria (D) 1.3 93,446 Robert Newman (R) 0.6 44,674 Michael Shellenberger (D) 0.5 31,692 Peter Liu (R) 0.4 27,336 Yvonne Girard (R) 0.3 21,840 Gloria La Riva (Peace and Freedom Party) 0.3 19,075 Submit photo Juan Bribiesca (D) 0.3 17,586 Josh Jones (G) 0.2 16,131 Zoltan Gyurko Istvan (L) 0.2 14,462 Submit photo Albert Caesar Mezzetti (D) 0.2 12,026 Nickolas Wildstar (L) 0.2 11,566 Submit photo Robert Davidson Griffis (D) 0.2 11,103 Akinyemi Agbede (D) 0.1 9,380 Submit photo Thomas Jefferson Cares (D) 0.1 8,937 Christopher Carlson (G) 0.1 7,302 Klement Tinaj (D) 0.1 5,368 Hakan Mikado (Independent) 0.1 5,346 Submit photo Johnny Wattenburg (Independent) 0.1 4,973 Desmond Silveira (Independent) 0.1 4,633 Shubham Goel (Independent) 0.1 4,020 Submit photo Jeffrey Edward Taylor (Independent) 0.1 3,973 There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Total votes: 6,961,130 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. Withdrawn or disqualified candidates Boris Romanowsky (Independent) Robert Kleinberger (R) Lindsey Neil Shortland (Independent) George Konik (R) Scot Sturtevant (Independent) Ted Crisell (D) James Tran (Independent) Jacob Morris (R) Michael Bilger (Independent) Andy Blanch (Independent) Daniel Amare (R) David Bush (Independent) David Hadley (R) Grant Handzlik (Independent) David Asem (D) Stasyi Barth (R) Michael Bracamontes (D) Analila Joya (Independent) Harmesh Kumar (D) Joshua Laine (Independent) John Leslie-Brown (R) Frederic Prinz von Anhalt (Independent) Timothy Richardson (Independent) Brian Domingo (R) Doug Ose (R)

2016

See also: United States Senate election in California, 2016 Villaraigosa was a potential candidate in the 2016 election for the U.S. Senate , to represent California . He ultimately decided not to seek election, stating “I am humbled by the encouragement I’ve received from so many to serve in the United States Senate. But as I think about how best to serve the people of this great state, I know that my heart and my family are here in California, not Washington, D.C.” [25]

Issue positions (campaign themes)

2026

Ballotpedia survey responses See also: Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection Antonio Villaraigosa has not yet completed Ballotpedia’s 2026 Candidate Connection survey. Send a message to Antonio Villaraigosa asking him to fill out the survey . If you are Antonio Villaraigosa, click here to fill out Ballotpedia’s 2026 Candidate Connection survey . Who fills out Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey? Any candidate running for elected office, at any level, can complete Ballotpedia’s Candidate Survey. Completing the survey will update the candidate’s Ballotpedia profile, letting voters know who they are and what they stand for. More than 28,000 candidates have taken Ballotpedia’s candidate survey since we launched it in 2015. Learn more about the survey here . You can ask Antonio Villaraigosa to fill out this survey by using the buttons below or emailing contact@antonio2026.com. Campaign website Villaraigosa’s campaign website stated the following: Issues A Thriving California Starts with Affordability California is the state where anything is possible with hard work and determination. But our future depends on our willingness to face our biggest challenges – skyrocketing housing and living costs, homelessness, climate change, and keeping good jobs in California. In 2023, we had a net loss of over 268,000 residents . They left because things in California got too hard – and too expensive. California has the fourth highest cost of living in the United States and the second highest typical home value. Single-family homes in California are 216% more expensive than the rest of the United States, and the average rent in California is $2,795 per month. Now, we have the added burden of an unpredictable federal government slashing funding, cutting jobs, and engaging in trade wars that are already destabilizing the economy. We have serious problems and need to focus on real solutions. The state needs to stop throwing money at problems and expecting a different result. Instead, we need to fix what’s broken, find new solutions, and only invest in what works. Stand up to Donald Trump Antonio Villaraigosa has never been afraid to stand up to bullies, and that includes Donald Trump. While Trump sows division and fear, Antonio has always fought to bring people together, to protect our communities, and to ensure every voice is heard. As Mayor and Speaker, he took on powerful special interests to deliver results for working families, and he’ll bring that same courage to standing up to Trump’s extreme MAGA agenda. Antonio knows our values are on the line and will stand up to defend our democracy, protect immigrant communities, and ensure fairness for every Californian. He’s ready to fight back with the strength, integrity, and leadership this moment demands. We Need to Build Again To make California affordable again, we need to start building again. Yes, we need to fast track new home construction, but we also need to jumpstart building up our energy grid, water storage, and transportation infrastructure. Building increases supply and capacity, and will create hundreds of thousands of good-paying, middle-class jobs. We have the know-how. We can build housing that working families can afford. We can modernize and expand our energy grid so blackouts don’t become routine. We can capture, clean, and store the water we will desperately need in the years ahead. But we don’t. We let endless lawsuits and bureaucratic inertia grind progress to a halt. If California is to remain a place where people can thrive, we must break the logjam. That means streamlining permitting, challenging local opposition that has long blocked progress, and making the hard choices that past leaders have avoided. Affordable Energy for All We need an “All of the Above” energy policy, with renewables like solar and wind, but also nuclear, natural gas, and yes, gas-powered cars. We must keep our commitment to tackling climate change, but we can’t do it at the expense of good-paying jobs; and we can’t just have energy mandates that unfairly burden working families. To secure our energy future, we need to build. We need to build for greater solar and wind generation. Texas and Florida have now passed California in solar generation capacity. By building our generation capacity, we can meet our energy needs and goals, while creating jobs and ultimately, making energy more affordable. If we are truly committed to meeting our climate goals, we have to build transmission lines. It currently takes over a decade to build new transmission projects in California. California has the slowest transmission approval amongst the ten western states. Without reducing these lead times, it’s unlikely we’ll meet our energy goals. Cut Red Tape By reforming our permitting and regulatory processes, we allow Californians to spend more time building and less time buried in legal battles. We need to reform California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Rather than continuing to make piecemeal exceptions, we need to reform CEQA so it does what it was intended—to minimize the likely environmental effect of development. Instead, CEQA is often abused and used to slow down or stop developments all together. CEQA battles not only delay building projects, they make them more costly. If we are serious about making California affordable, we must streamline CEQA reviews. Protecting Consumers and Financial Technology Fifty-two million Americans own crypto, and nearly nine in ten (87%) Americans believe the financial system is outdated. Government has always fallen behind technology, but failing to act on cryptocurrency puts us at risk of losing millions of jobs, and driving innovation and global leadership out of the U.S. I believe we should protect the right of Americans to choose to use crypto, foster innovation and create jobs while protecting consumers, and enable America to remain the leader in financial services for decades to come and make greater progress towards regulatory cl

2018

“ Economic Prosperity & Equality It is a frequently repeated fact: If California were a nation, our gross domestic product would rank us as the sixth largest economy in the world. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But recent numbers confirm that not every area of the state is doing quite that well. Compare two regions, the Bay Area and the San Joaquin Valley. According to recent numbers, the Bay Area (with a population of about 5.7 million) has a larger economy than the Netherlands and ranks in the top 20 worldwide. However, the San Joaquin Valley (population 4.1 million) keeps much less prestigious company – according to a recent article in the Central Valley Business Times, the Central Valley would fall between Iraq and Algeria and not even make the top 50. No one would mistake the economy of the Netherlands for that of Algeria, and no one should mistake the wide economic opportunity gap that exists in our state. It’s a tale of two Californias, one coastal and thriving, one inland and still suffering the effects of the Great Recession. That’s why we need to rethink our one-size-fits-all approach to economic policy and regulation. A policy that might make sense in Silicon Valley doesn’t necessarily make a difference in Fresno. A regulation that is a small annoyance for a thriving business on the west side of Los Angeles could be a job killer for an industry in the Inland Empire. We certainly need to set big economic goals, but then give each of our economic regions the tools and autonomy they need to grow our economy fairly. We once enabled “enterprise zones,” which were largely county based. These zones were swept away in the last recession when Sacramento took the funds that were dedicated to local economic development to help close a statewide budget gap. While we have taken the limited step of restoring some local infrastructure financing, we need to be bolder. We need to fully restore those local economic development funds because when it comes to local economic growth, Sacramento doesn’t always know best. And we need to establish broad regional economic opportunity zones and cooperation, so economically challenged areas can work together to attract high-wage jobs. The facts show the stark disparities in our economic progress. In recent years, the Bay Area accounted for 62 percent of the growth in high-wage jobs in areas like information technology and professional and business services. The Central Valley lost jobs in these high-wage sectors. Per capita income in the Central Valley is now 30 percent below the statewide average. And families in the Inland Empire fare even worse, with incomes 34 percent below the California average. When I served as speaker of the state Assembly, I was not shy about passing bold new laws and new mandates. But as mayor of Los Angeles, I learned that statewide mandates, regulations and interventions didn’t always make sense from a local perspective. What seemed easy from the Capitol building is a whole lot more complicated up close. I recently proposed restoring the ability of local governments to keep local funds to invest in the creation of housing for teachers, nurses, firefighters and others. Such a power will most likely be used in the Bay Area and along the coast, where red-hot economic growth has caused housing costs to soar to astronomical levels. Now, it is time to give a similar power to those parts of our state facing another challenge – slow economic growth and a lack of high-wage jobs. These new Prosperity Zones need the power to keep local funds local. They need the ability to adapt regulations to local realities while continuing to meet statewide goals. Most of all, they need the authority to act together as regional economies to help lift up every family in every part of California. Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” The challenge facing California in the years ahead is making sure that abundance extends to every part of our great state so that we are making economic progress for everyone. Equality in Education With the passage of California’s Local Control Funding Formula and the new federal education law, Every Student Succeeds Act, responsibility for protecting disadvantaged children in the classroom falls squarely on states and districts. The question is: Is California ready for the responsibility? Will California lead the nation in educational excellence and opportunity or will we continue to trail behind states like Massachusetts that made a commitment decades ago to high expectations and meaningful accountability? I believe in the power of education to make the American Dream possible for anyone willing to work hard. I not only believe it. I know it firsthand. Education is often called the great equalizer — putting all kids on a level playing field and giving them an equal shot at a good life. But American education is still unequal and inadequate for too many young people. We are one of the few developed nations in the world that spends less to educate poor kids than to educate rich ones. And when the system of education is unequal, the results will be unequal. Consider California’s results on the national NAEP test — often referred to as the “gold standard” of assessments. Our Latino students have made some gains over the years, but California is still ranked near the bottom and the gaps remain large. For example, in eighth-grade math only 15 percent of our Latino kids are at grade compared to 53 percent of white students — a 38-point difference. In fourth-grade reading, the percentage of Hispanics at grade is 31 points lower than for white students. For black students, it’s 33 points lower. Unless we change those numbers, education will perpetuate inequity instead of reducing it. Instead of driving economic mobility and providing a ladder to the middle class, it will lock access

Enrichment source: Ballotpedia — https://ballotpedia.org/Antonio_Villaraigosa

Sources

• CalMatters 2026 Voter Guide
• Ballotpedia (enrichment, when available)