Amongst the small military of prospects who’ve eyed the California governorship, none appeared extra certified than Toni Atkins.
After serving on the San Diego Metropolis Council, she moved on to Sacramento, the place Atkins led each the Meeting and state Senate, considered one of simply three individuals in historical past — and the primary in 147 years — to go each homes of California’s Legislature.
She negotiated eight state budgets with two governors and, amongst different achievements, handed main laws on abortion rights, assist for low-income households and a $7.5-billion water bond.
You possibly can disagree together with her politics however, clearly, Atkins is somebody who is aware of her manner across the Capitol.
She married that experience with the sort of hardscrabble, up-by-her-bootstraps backstory {that a} calculating political marketing consultant might need spun from complete material, had it not been so.
Atkins grew up in rural Appalachia in a rented dwelling with an outside privy. Her first pair of glasses was a present from the native Lions Membership. She didn’t go to a dentist till she was 24. Her household was too poor.
But for all of that, Atkins’ gubernatorial marketing campaign didn’t final even to 2026, when voters will elect a successor to the termed-out Gavin Newsom. She give up the race in September, greater than eight months earlier than the first.
She has no regrets.
“It was a tough determination,” the Democrat stated. “However I’m a practical particular person.”
She couldn’t and wouldn’t maintain asking “supporters and other people to contribute an increasing number of if the end result was not going to be what we hoped,” Atkins stated. “I wanted kind of a moonshot to do it, and I didn’t see that.”
She spoke just lately by way of Zoom from the den of her dwelling in San Diego, the place Atkins had simply returned after spending a number of weeks again in Virginia, tending to a dying buddy and mentor, considered one of her former faculty professors.
“I used to be a first-generation faculty child … a hillbilly,” Atkins stated. She felt as if she had no place on the planet “and this professor, Steve Fisher, principally helped flip me round and never be a sufferer. Study to prepare. Study to work with individuals on widespread targets. … He was one of many first individuals that basically helped me to know find out how to be a part of one thing greater than myself.”
Over the 22 months of her marketing campaign — between the launch in January 2024 and its abandonment on Sept. 29 — Atkins traveled California from tip to toe, holding numerous conferences and speaking to innumerable voters. “It’s one factor to be the speaker or the [Senate leader],” she stated. “Folks deal with you in another way while you’re a candidate. You’re interesting to them to help you, and it’s a unique dialog.”
What she heard was a number of practicality.
Folks lamenting the exorbitant price of housing, power and little one care. Rural Californians frightened about their dwindling entry to healthcare. Mother and father and academics involved about wanton immigration raids and their impact on children. “It wasn’t offered as a political factor,” Atkins stated. “It was simply worry for [their] neighbors.”
She heard lots from enterprise house owners and, particularly, put-upon residents of pink California, who griped about Sacramento and its seeming disconnection from their lives and livelihoods. “I heard in Tehama County … of us saying, ‘Look, we care concerning the atmosphere, however we will’t have electrical faculty buses right here. We don’t have any infrastructure.’ ”
Voters gave the impression to be of two — considerably contradictory — minds about what they need of their subsequent governor.
First off, “Somebody that’s going to be centered on California, California issues and California points,” Atkins stated. “They need a governor that’s not going to be performative, however actually centered on the problems that California wants assistance on.”
On the identical, they see the harm that President Trump and his punitive insurance policies have accomplished to the state in a really brief time, so “in addition they wish to see a fighter.”
The problem, Atkins steered, is “convincing individuals … you’re completely going to struggle for California values and, on the identical, that you just’re going to be centered on fixing the roads.”
Possibly California must elect a contortionist.
Given her appreciable know-how and compelling background, why did Atkins’ marketing campaign fizzle?
Right here’s a clue: The phrase begins with “m” and ends with “y” and speaks to one thing pernicious about our political system.
“I hoped my expertise and my collaborative nature and my skill to work throughout social gathering strains once I wanted to … would achieve traction,” Atkins stated. “However I simply didn’t have the title recognition.”
Or, extra pertinently, the massive pile of money wanted to construct that title recognition and get elected to statewide workplace in California.
Whereas Atkins wasn’t a nasty fundraiser, she merely couldn’t elevate the numerous tens of tens of millions of {dollars} wanted to run a viable gubernatorial race.
That may very well be seen as a referendum of kinds. If sufficient individuals wished Atkins to be governor, she theoretically would have collected additional cash. However who doubts that cash has an unholy affect on our elections?
(Aside from Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who spent a lot of his profession preventing marketing campaign finance reform, and members of the Supreme Courtroom who green-lit right this moment’s limitless geyser of marketing campaign spending.)
At age 63, Atkins just isn’t sure what comes subsequent.
“I’ve misplaced dad and mom, but it surely’s been many years,” she stated. “And to lose Steve” — her beloved ex-college professor — “I believe I’m going to take the remainder of the 12 months to replicate. I’m undoubtedly going to remain engaged … however I’m going to give attention to household” not less than till January.
Atkins stays optimistic about her adopted dwelling state, however her unsuccessful run for governor and the earful of criticisms she heard alongside the best way,
“California is the place the place individuals dream,” she stated. “We nonetheless have the power to do large issues … We’re the fourth-largest financial system. We’re a nation-state. We have to keep in mind that.”
With out shedding sight of the fundamentals.
