Xavier Becerra reportedly mulls cabinet exit to run for California governor

Maanvi Singh
<span>Xavier Becerra testifies during a senate hearing in Washington DC on 23 February 2021.</span><span>Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/Pool via Reuters</span>
Xavier Becerra testifies during a senate hearing in Washington DC on 23 February 2021.Photograph: Sarah Silbiger/Pool via Reuters

Xavier Becerra, the health and human services secretary, is reportedly considering leaving his post to run for California governor.

Becerra has discussed in private conversations his desire to leave Washington in November and join an already crowded field of candidates to succeed Gavin Newsom as governor, Politico reported, citing anonymous sources.

Becerra’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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If he enters the 2026 governor’s race, Becerra will be facing off against several fellow Democrats and colleagues, including the lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis, former California senate president pro tempore Toni Atkins and state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurmond. The current California attorney general, Rob Bonta, is also expected to announce a run.

Before taking his post as health and human services secretary, Becerra was California’s attorney general. He is the first Latino to hold both posts. Before that, he served in the US House of Representatives for 26 years. In the Biden administration, he had a role overseeing the Covid-19 response, including the vaccine rollout.

Becerra’s critics have decried his lack of public health training and experience; he is an attorney by training and a longtime politician who helped pass the Affordable Care Act into law. But he has nonetheless carved out a role in defending and promoting the administration’s policies to lower drug prices and protect the right to abortion.

In recent weeks, he has made visits across the country highlighting the Biden administration’s reproductive rights agenda before the 2024 election.

“No woman today should fear [not having] access to the care that she needs. President Biden has made that clear,” Becerra told supporters in Florida last week. He characterized the Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban as “medical apartheid”.

Becerra sidestepped questions about a gubernatorial run. “It’s a blessing to hear that someone is saying that I’m running for governor because I don’t know who they are,” he told Politico. “I am secretary of HHS and, by law, I have to be secretary of HHS and nothing else. So I’m gonna do my job as best I can. It’s a thrill – I think my mom would be happy to hear that someone thinks I can run for governor as well.”