Matt Mahan, a moderate Democrat who has been the mayor of San Jose, Calif., since 2023, announced on Thursday that he would run for California governor this year, joining a growing field of candidates that has yet to produce a clear front-runner.
Though Mr. Mahan, 43, is not well known across California, he could gain traction by positioning himself as a leader who doesn’t adhere to the Democratic status quo.
He has emerged as a vocal critic of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run again because of term limits, and attacked the governor’s approach to issues like crime, homelessness and President Trump in ways that few other Democrats have.
Fewer than five months before the June primary, none of the dozen candidates in the 2026 governor’s race has grabbed a significant lead in polls. While many have held elected office or had business success, they are not household names across the vast state.
Mr. Mahan began his career as a technology entrepreneur and could draw upon his longstanding ties to Silicon Valley’s tech sector to raise money. His focus on building more housing could also lead to support from the construction industry.
Still, it isn’t clear that he can build on his profile enough to emerge from a field that includes at least nine Democrats and three Republicans. He would have to secure one of the top two spots in the June primary to advance to the November general election.
Public-sector labor unions hold tremendous sway in Democratic politics, and they are unlikely to support Mr. Mahan after years of clashing with him in San Jose. And in a midterm election that will surely be focused on Mr. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in the state, Mr. Mahan stands out as a California Democrat who has avoided attacking the president.
Mr. Mahan has focused instead on addressing local issues and downplaying national politics. Mr. Mahan’s campaign may serve as a test to see whether a Democrat can gain wide appeal in California without casting himself as a combatant.
“I believe that the best resistance is demonstrating results,” Mr. Mahan said in an interview, “and showing that a state with our values and our diversity can produce greater economic opportunity and a higher quality of life for all of our residents.”
He added that he would not hesitate to file lawsuits against the Trump administration when necessary to protect the state.
San Jose, with nearly one million residents, is the largest city in Northern California and a hub for Silicon Valley, set on the south tip of San Francisco Bay. While San Jose lacks the iconic landmarks and cultural dominance of San Francisco or Los Angeles, the city faces many of the same urban problems.
Mayor Mahan has focused on reducing crime and homelessness in his city. Last year, he angered many progressives when he proposed an ordinance that would allow the city to arrest homeless people if they refused offers of shelter three times. The year before, he backed a statewide initiative to create stiffer penalties for some drug and theft crimes, putting him at odds with Mr. Newsom and other Democratic leaders who opposed the measure, but in line with the nearly 70 percent of California voters who passed it.
“These are solvable problems, but they’re going to require focused and accountable leadership in Sacramento,” Mayor Mahan said.
He has been critical of Mr. Newsom’s bombastic tone toward Mr. Trump on social media, saying that the governor had ignored California’s high poverty and unemployment rates while making “a blind leap into meme land.”
“The way we win the fight for a better California is by solving problems in the real world, not by stooping to Donald Trump’s level online,” Mr. Mahan wrote in an essay for The San Francisco Standard in August.
Mr. Mahan grew up in Watsonville, Calif., a farming town known for its abundant strawberry fields, an hour south of San Jose. He attended Harvard, where he met Mark Zuckerberg, who later encouraged him to pursue a career in tech instead of law school.
“I was doing student government as he was building Facebook, and I saw the potential for the internet to become a platform for organizing,” Mr. Mahan said.
He eventually helped create Brigade, a digital tool for political organizing, and ran for the San Jose City Council in 2020. His current term as mayor lasts until 2028, which means he can run for governor this year without giving up his seat.
Last year, Mr. Mahan said he would not run for governor and called on candidates to focus on solving the state’s problems with housing, homelessness and high energy costs. But he has been dissatisfied with how the race has unfolded, he says. And two potential heavyweights, Senator Alex Padilla and former Vice President Kamala Harris, have opted not to run, leaving the contest wide open.
Katie Porter, a Democratic former congresswoman who held an early lead in several polls, saw her support drop after two embarrassing videos surfaced in October showing her berating a staff member and belittling a journalist. Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democratic fixture on cable news shows, entered the race in November, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire liberal activist, launched his bid the same month by giving his campaign $28 million.
The Democratic field also includes Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles; Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general who was the secretary of Health and Human Services during the Biden administration; Tony Thurmond, the state schools superintendent; and Betty Yee, a former state controller.
Republican candidates include Chad Bianco, the sheriff of Riverside County; Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host; and Jon Slavet, a business executive.
Laurel Rosenhall is a Sacramento-based reporter covering California politics and government for The Times.
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