{"id":131070,"date":"2026-01-13T02:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T02:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/131070\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T02:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T02:42:10","slug":"gloria-romero-announces-run-for-california-lieutenant-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/131070\/","title":{"rendered":"Gloria Romero announces run for California lieutenant governor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gloria Romero, a former Democrat and state Senate Majority Leader, announced Monday she is running for lieutenant governor as part of a ticket with GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton<\/a>, a former Fox News commentator.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s really about one-party rule in Sacramento. I\u2019ve seen it. I left it,\u201d Romero said in an interview. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to make a change, otherwise we will never turn around on accountability or affordability and fight for working families like the Democrats once said the party stood for. Those days are gone. It\u2019s a new day, and I\u2019m proud to work alongside Steve in this exciting race to make California Golden again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hilton, who has a long-standing political relationship with Romero, said her expertise in the state Capitol is among the reasons he selected her. Romero served in the state Senate and Assembly for about 12 years, including three as the state Senate\u2019s first female majority leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been incredibly helpful already, helping me understand how Sacramento works and doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Hilton said. \u201cWhen I\u2019m the governor I will have to work with the legislature. And one of the most important things that I see as a real benefit from having Gloria there with me is that she\u2019s not just been in the legislature, she\u2019s led one of the chambers. She really understands how it works and still has relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other candidates running for lieutenant governor include Treasurer Fiona Ma, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and Josh Fryday, a member of Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s cabinet, all Democrats, and state Sen. Brian Jones (R-Santee).<\/p>\n

Romero was a lifelong Democrat, including co-chairing President Obama\u2019s 2012 reelection campaign in California. But she began to break with her party over education reform, notably her support for school choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducation is the key to the American dream, and yet my party was so beholden to the teachers union, the alphabet soup of power influencers in Sacramento,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Invoking the words of the late President Reagan, Romero said she didn\u2019t leave the Democratic party, the party left her. She became a registered Republican in September 2024 after what she calls a \u201cpolitical coup\u201d to oust President Biden as the Democratic nominee. She then endorsed President Trump and spoke at a rally supporting him near Coachella<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She said the lieutenant governor\u2019s role is typically a sleepy perch for politicians as they bide their time to run for higher office.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should not be that way,\u201d Romero said, adding that the lieutenant governor\u2019s role on the boards that oversee the UCs, Cal States and community college is a particularly good fit for her wheelhouse. \u201cEducation and turning around education, it\u2019s in my blood, it\u2019s in my dreams. It\u2019s my passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike presidential elections, statewide contests do not feature running mates; each candidate must be elected on their own merits.<\/p>\n

Hilton said Romero was the first member of his \u201cgolden ticket for California\u201d and that he planned to roll out other statewide candidates who will join their effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it hasn\u2019t been done before. It\u2019s not how things are normally done,\u201d he said. \u201cBut right from the beginning, when I was thinking about my race for governor, one of the things that I really wanted to do was to put together a strong team, because turning around California is going to take a strong team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gloria Romero, a former Democrat and state Senate Majority Leader, announced Monday she is running for lieutenant governor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31646,7,67247,9,67246,8,217,1751,32727,67249,8642,2324,24696,6049,67245,121,67248,211],"class_list":["post-131070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-american-dream","tag-california","tag-california-golden","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-lieutenant-governor","tag-california-news","tag-day","tag-democrats","tag-education-reform","tag-gloria-romero","tag-hilton","tag-member","tag-party","tag-role","tag-romero","tag-sacramento","tag-state-senate-majority-leader","tag-ticket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}