{"id":100122,"date":"2025-09-30T09:21:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T09:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/30\/toni-atkins-drops-out-of-california-governors-race-ahead-of-2026-primary\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T09:21:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T09:21:04","slug":"toni-atkins-drops-out-of-california-governors-race-ahead-of-2026-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/30\/toni-atkins-drops-out-of-california-governors-race-ahead-of-2026-primary\/","title":{"rendered":"Toni Atkins Drops Out of California Governor\u2019s Race Ahead of 2026 Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s with such a heavy heart that I\u2019m stepping aside today as a candidate for governor,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Atkins launched her campaign in early 2024, hoping her prolific legislative career and humble roots would appeal to Democrats searching for fixes to the state\u2019s most intractable problems, such as housing affordability. But she struggled to gain traction in a governor\u2019s race consumed by a focus on national politics.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11980990\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11980990\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21.jpg\" alt=\"A white man in a business suit with his hands up by a podium stands next to two other men.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21-160x107.jpg 160w, https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.kqed.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/03\/022924_Newsom-Prop-1_KC_CM_21-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins stands with Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with Attorney General Rob Bonta, during a press conference in San Diego on Feb. 29, 2024. <cite>(Kristian Carreon\/CalMatters)<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Born in rural Virginia to a seamstress and a coal miner, Atkins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kqed.org\/news\/11692120\/state-senate-president-toni-atkins-on-her-appalachian-roots-san-diegos-political-culture-and-leadership-in-the-metoo-era\">told<\/a> KQED\u2019s Political Breakdown in 2018 that her early childhood home had no bathroom \u2014 just an outhouse.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had no running water,\u201d she recalled. \u201cMy mom cooked on a wood stove.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Atkins moved to California in the 1980s and was elected to two terms on the San Diego City Council. After two years as Assembly speaker, she became the first woman and first LGBTQ person to serve as Senate president pro tem when she ascended to the post in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>During her six years as leader of the Senate, Atkins wrote bills to ease housing construction, ban state travel to states with anti-LGBT policies and enshrine abortion protections in the constitution \u2014 a measure that won wide approval from California voters.<\/p>\n<p>In her campaign for governor, Atkins built up a hefty financial warchest of over $4 million. Her support of pro-housing bills in the Legislature won her the early support of the state\u2019s carpenters union and San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/news\/2025\/09\/29\/toni-atkins-drops-out-california-governors-race-ahead-of-2026-primary\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s with such a heavy heart that I\u2019m stepping aside today as a candidate for governor,\u201d she added. Atkins launched her campaign in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-spotlight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}