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Michael Tubbs is running for lieutenant governor of California, returning to politics four years after voters in his Central Valley hometown ousted him as one of the country's youngest mayors following his reboot of guaranteed income programs for the poor that made him a star.
The 2026 campaign, announced Wednesday, offers something of a soft landing spot for Tubbs as it will give him experience running a statewide campaign for an office that gets little public attention and is mostly ceremonial. The main job is to fill in whenever the governor is out of state, and the only real power comes with sitting on the University of California and California State University boards of regents.
However Tubbs sees opportunities in the office similar to those he had during his stint as the mayor of Stockton, where he melded the power of his personal story with ambitious plans for the oft-forgotten city, becoming a a rising figure among state Democrats who were searching for inspiration after Republican Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.
“Oftentimes it's not about the formal role or statutory authority of a position, but it's really about the leader in that position ... and how they're able to use that position to get things done and to make it big or to make it meaningful for the people they want to serve,” Tubbs said.
Raised by a single mother with a father in prison, Tubbs graduated from Stanford and interned in the Obama White House before winning election as the first Black mayor of Stockton in 2016 when he was just 26 years old.
His biggest splash was securing funding from Silicon Valley for a guaranteed income program that paid poor people $500 a month with no restrictions on how they could spend the money. The program, a relaunch of an old idea, prompted dozens of similar programs across the country, culminating with the California Legislature setting aside $35 million for guaranteed income programs benefitting pregnant people and former foster children.
But Tubbs' celebrity status turned off some voters in Stockton, and he lost his reelection bid in 2020 to Republican Kevin Lincoln, a little-known figure at the time.
Since then, Tubbs has followed a familiar script for political rehabilitation. He acted as an unpaid advisor to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and published a memoir while working with a coalition he founded to help launch guaranteed income programs across the country.
For Tubbs to complete the comeback and win office, he will have to best some formidable candidates with lots of experience in Sacramento, including Democrats Fiona Ma, who is finishing up two terms as state treasurer, and state Sen. Steven Bradford, known for pushing California closer to becoming the first state to offer reparations for slavery.
“I have a track record of doing hard things,” Tubbs said. “When we think of sort of the problems that have been caused by Sacramento or attempted to be solved by Sacramento, I'm just not convinced those same problems can be solved by people who've spent decades in Sacramento.”
Lieutenant governor has been a stepping stone to the governor's office for some, including Newsom, who was lieutenant governor for eight years before getting elected to his current position in 2018. In the 1990s, Democrat Gray Davis also occupied the post before winning the state's top job, and current Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis is a strong contender in a field of candidates to replace Newsom in the 2026 election.
Tubbs said he views the job as important in its own right. But he still has his eyes on the future.
“My hope is to do such a great job ... that in four to eight years, after the job, I have all types of options for things to do,” he said.
