State Sen. Dave Cortese plans to run for California Attorney General if Rob Bonta decides to enter the governor’s race. It could boost the odds of the next top state prosecutor coming from Santa Clara County.
Cortese represents District 15, which covers portions of San Jose, Morgan Hill, Gilroy and San Martin. He previously served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors from 2009 to 2020 and on the San Jose City Council from 2001 to 2008. Voters first elected him to the state Senate in 2020 after he lost the 2014 San Jose mayoral election to Sam Liccardo, now a congressman.
Cortese has two years left in his state Senate term. A victory in the attorney general’s race would mean yet another special election in Santa Clara County to fill the final year of his term.
A top ranking campaign organizer confirmed Cortese’s intent to run.
“We want to respect AG Bonta and his process, but if he decides to step into the governor’s race, then Dave will run,” Tom Clifford, Cortese’s political consultant, told San José Spotlight.
State political finance records show Cortese has set up a 2026 campaign committee for the office.
Cortese’s interest in running for state attorney general comes after POLITICO reported Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen is also mulling a run for attorney general if Bonta steps aside.
Cortese, an attorney, has strong ties to labor and a record of combatting Republican federal policies under President Donald Trump. He previously served as chair of the California Senate Labor Committee and passed workers’ rights legislation in the wake of the 2021 VTA rail yard shooting.
He also helped file a first-of-its-kind lawsuit in 2017 against Trump’s first-term administration challenging attempts to rescind Deferred Action for Childcare Arrivals (DACA), a program protecting children, known as Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. at a young age from deportation.
The state senator has also led major gun-violence prevention efforts, including safe-storage laws, a 24/7 firearms relinquishment program and gun buybacks. Additionally, he authored policies on ending the incarceration of children under 13.
Both Rosen and Cortese could approach the race in unique lanes amid a statewide, reactionary push-and-pull between electing reformist and tough-on-crime prosecutors. Rosen has been idiosyncratic on Silicon Valley’s key criminal punishment debates in recent years. He declined to endorse voter-approved Proposition 36 in 2024, which ramped up criminal punishment for petty theft. Rosen also made headlines for changing his stance on the death penalty, pushing to overturn — and resentence — more than a dozen death sentences handed out in the county courts.
Cortese also declined to endorse Proposition 36. That year, he was honored with the California Judges Association’s Scales of Justice Award.
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.