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Atkins, an experienced California lawmaker, has just received the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund's endorsement.
California won’t elect a new governor to replace term-limited Gavin Newsom until 2026, but the race is already attracting plenty of attention and high-profile candidates. But the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund thinks it has a winner in longtime California legislator Toni Atkins, who it has just endorsed.
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Atkins is a lesbian, and Victory Fund endorses only out LGBTQ+ candidates — but also only viable and qualified ones, and Victory Fund President and CEO Annise Parker says Atkins is viable, qualified, and then some in a field of declared candidates that includes former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, and former Controller Betty Yee — and could draw many more, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
When it comes to qualifications, Atkins “is so far ahead of anybody else who could possibly step up in California,” Parker tells The Advocate. In her time in politics, Atkins has been a member of the San Diego City Council, the California Assembly, and the California Senate, and “in every one of those bodies, she moved into leadership. … Toni is a seasoned politician and has been successful,” Parker says.
Atkins grew up in a working-class family in rural Virginia; the family home did not have running water. Now 62, she came out at age 17. She moved to San Diego in 1985 to help with child care for her twin sister, who was serving in the U.S. Navy. She then went to work for a women’s health clinic and later for San Diego City Council member Christine Kehoe, a lesbian who was the first out LGBTQ+ person on the council. When Kehoe was elected to the California Assembly in 2000, Atkins was elected to the council seat she vacated. Atkins was also San Diego’s acting mayor for a time.
Atkins was elected to the Assembly in 2010 and became speaker in 2014. She moved up to the state Senate in 2016 and became its president pro tempore in 2018. During governors’ absences, she has served as acting governor and signed bills into law. She is now out of the Senate due to term limits, so she’s running for governor full-time.
“Toni Atkins is really the embodiment of the work that Victory Fund’s been doing over the past more than 30 years,” Parker says. “We believe in the political pipeline, people starting at the local level and moving up. She embodies what we do, and we have been with her in all of those campaigns.”
Victory Fund has a policy of not endorsing candidates earlier than 18 months before a primary, and it endorsed Atkins as soon as the window opened. "We wanted to get in early enough to make a difference," Parker says. California's 2026 primary will be held June 2 and the general election November 3. Atkins, Villaraigosa, Kounalakis, Thurmond, and Yee are all Democrats; some lesser-known Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian candidates have announced as well. But California is heavily Democratic, and under its primary system, candidates from all parties run against each other and the top two advance to the general election, regardless of party — so the next governor will almost assuredly be a Democrat.
Atkins says she’s “ecstatic” about the Victory Fund endorsement. “It’s really significant, it’s important to me,” she says. “This checks all the boxes for me as a woman, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a member of the working class.” If elected, Atkins would be California’s first woman governor and first LGBTQ+ one, after having been the Senate’s first woman and first out Senate president pro tempore. She was the first lesbian speaker of the Assembly; a gay man, John Pérez, had been speaker previously.
Regarding the experience that has prepared her for being governor, Atkins points to having worked with two very different governors, Newsom and Jerry Brown, both liberal Democrats but with different styles and situations. When Brown was elected governor and Atkins to the Assembly in 2010, California was working its way out of a $26 billion deficit; when Newsom was elected in 2018, the state had more resources. She also notes the relationships she’s built up with fellow legislators. “It takes the governor working in conjunction with them to move ahead,” she says.
She’s particularly proud of having helped California implement an earned income tax credit and having advocated for a state constitutional amendment affirming the rights to abortion and contraception. She further negotiated eight on-time balanced budgets with the two governors, set goals for addressing the climate crisis, and increased access to health care.
She has been involved with climate issues for many years, as she was on the San Diego council when the first major wildfires hit the area in the early 2000s. “Droughts, erosion, all of these issues are about climate change,” she says.
Fighting climate change will be one of her priorities as governor, as will addressing California’s high cost of living and lack of affordable housing. She will also continue to advocate for women and the LGBTQ+ community — and see that the state does everything in its power to resist Donald Trump’s nefarious plans for his new term as president.
“I’ve lived through Trump’s first term,” Atkins says. In his second term, the state must use all legal means to protect immigrants, including the undocumented ones Trump wants to deport en masse, she says.
“Our economy wouldn’t be the fifth largest in the world without those residents,” she says. Protecting them “will have to be a priority.”
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In addition, California must protect marriage equality and gender-affirming care, building on what it’s done along those lines already, Atkins notes.
The state will likely be a target of Trump and his allies, but “I am going to continue to promote and support and fight for California values,” she says. As California is the nation’s most populous state, Americans elsewhere look to it for leadership, and the state has challenges but a reputation for innovation and finding solutions, she adds.
Further discussing her experience, Atkins recalls that when she moved to San Diego in 1985, she quickly joined an LGBTQ+ Democratic club, and her job running a women’s clinic certainly involved politics. “I came with a desire to serve,” she says. When Kehoe became San Diego’s first out council member in 1993, it changed the city’s political trajectory, Atkins says, helping move it from conservative to liberal. Then, when Kehoe left the council, she pushed Atkins to run for her District 3 seat, and it’s now been held by an LGBTQ+ person for 30 years. “That was my mentor, that was my role model,” Atkins says of Kehoe.
“Toni Atkins is one of my favorite politicians personally,” Parker says. “Toni is the same Toni in every setting.” She’s never forgotten her impoverished upbringing, Parker notes, calling Atkins “smart, tough, gritty but very kind.”
Parker also points out that the nation has already elected four out governors — bisexual Kate Brown in Oregon, where she’s been succeeded by lesbian Tina Kotek; lesbian Maura Healey in Massachusetts; and gay man Jared Polis in Colorado. “So we don’t have to prove the concept anymore,” Parker adds.
She acknowledges that if Harris enters the governor’s race, all bets may be off, “but no one’s going to defer to her until then.”
Reflecting on her time in the Golden State, Atkins says, “I really did get to experience the California dream.” But she still has dreams to fulfill.
“I’ve enjoyed my 30 years in public service," she says, "and I’m not ready to step back."
