California isn’t working for working families. I know we can do better, and that’s why I’m running for governor.
I grew up in Watsonville, a farming town in Central California, in a working-class family. My dad was a mailman. My mom was a public school teacher. We had a good life, but we struggled. Every month, I watched my parents worry and fight over the bills. As a teenager, I survived a health scare because we had union medical insurance. I rode public buses for four hours every day to high school in San Jose, the first step toward building a better future than my parents had.
Too many kids growing up in California today — whether in farming towns, cities, or working-class neighborhoods — won’t have the same opportunities my generation had. I do not accept that.
We need a California where families can afford to stay and don’t flee our state to escape the sky-high costs of housing, energy, and everyday life. Where businesses are thriving, not leaving. Where our homeless neighbors are housed with dignity. But to make that happen, the state government must deliver results.
As mayor of San José, I’ve delivered results. We’ve reduced fees and cut through bureaucracy to get thousands of housing units built. We’ve reduced homelessness by one third and expanded mental health and addiction treatment. We’ve reduced gun violence by 71% and made San Jose the safest big city in America. I will bring that same relentless focus on affordability, accountability, and outcomes statewide as governor.
That includes my approach to state spending. California’s state budget has grown by 75% over the past six years, an increase of nearly $150 billion. But California is not 75% better. Trump’s budget cuts are only going to make things worse, and our most vulnerable residents are already paying the price.
Fellow Democrats in this race want to raise taxes and spend more. I want California to spend smarter and not keep going back to the same playbook.
California has spent tens of billions on homelessness, yet encampments continue to grow. We’ve dramatically increased education spending, yet too many students are falling behind. Californians are paying some of the highest housing, energy, and gas costs in the nation.
I will not continue funding this failure. If something is not working, I will work to fix it. We’ve already spent more getting high-speed rail to Modesto than NASA spent circling the moon. Thirty percent of our skyrocketing healthcare spending goes to administrative costs that we can reduce through innovation and new technology. We need to examine every agency budget, find inefficiencies, and squeeze out the bloat. We will create accountability through transparency and measurable results. As governor, I’ll bring my no-excuses, back-to-basics approach to Sacramento.
Key to making California affordable are pragmatic policies that make it cheaper, easier, and faster to build housing. For too long, we’ve made it too difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to build homes. We layer on endless approvals, duplicative regulations, fees, and delays, then wonder why middle-class families, teachers, nurses, and young people can no longer afford to live here. We need to take responsibility for what we’ve done and change it.
As mayor of San José I streamlined permitting, reduced excessive fees, supported faster approvals near transit and job centers, and pushed for more housing of all types.
As governor I will face down special interests, streamline laws that add unnecessary costs, and stop frivolous lawsuits. I will also rethink how we use public land and resources. California has thousands of acres of underutilized land owned by government agencies, school districts, and transit authorities that should be turned into housing for working families, teachers, and seniors.
The state must do more to hold local governments accountable. Cities cannot continue blocking housing while expecting the rest of the state to absorb the consequences. As governor, I will push for stronger enforcement of housing laws and tie state funding to actual housing production and results.
On June 2, voters have a choice. They can embrace MAGA, go with a billionaire whose promises are more fantastical than Donald Trump’s, stick with a career Washington politician whose record of failure will mean more of the same in Sacramento, or they can think differently.
I will make California work for working Californians with fresh thinking, a pragmatic approach, the courage to stand up to entrenched Sacramento interests, and a track record of bucking the status quo to get results — that is why I humbly request your vote.
Matt Mahan is mayor of San José.