California

Chief Inspector Supt.

of Public Education Tony Thurmond is officially running for governor in 2026 and will be the

last

Democrat to launch a campaign

a

race that features a large field after Gov. Gavin Newsom is forced to resign over term limits.

Thurmond made the announcement Tuesday after publicly toying with the idea this summer. He said in July that he was considering a gubernatorial election but was fully focused on his current job as the state’s top school official.

In a new ad, Thurmond, a former Democratic state lawmaker from the Bay Area who was elected superintendent in 2018, highlights his

youth

living in poverty, describing reliance on public assistance programs

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food stamps and working extra

McDonald’s

during college.

“I didn’t come from money, power or influence,”

Hi

says in the ad,

amide a

montage of California governors passing by all the white men, while an actor playing a young Thurmond, who is black, looks on. “My story is nothing like theirs.”

Thurmond was orphaned

six years old 6 years old

after his mother, an immigrant from Panama, died, and his father, a veteran, was absent, according to the ad. Citing his Afro-Latino heritage, he vows to address economic inequality in California, calling for a higher minimum wage, higher teacher wages and more affordable housing.

“California may work for millionaires and billionaires, but for the rest of California we need real change,” Thurmond said.

The advertisement is not specifically aimed at potential competitors, but is aimed at them

positions Thurmond as an advocate for

the working class

in a state that is also home to extreme wealth, a dynamic that could shape the race if California’s powerful labor unions rally behind his campaign.

The California Teachers Assn. and other unions spent millions to get Thurmond elected to the nonpartisan superintendent seat five years ago.

The only other candidate he has

officially

One campaign launched so far is Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat who comes from a wealthy family of housing developers.

Thurmond opened a campaign committee for governor in July and has since raised $101,000, according to secretary of state filings, with most of the contributions coming from unions representing electrical workers, plumbers and boilermakers.

The Oakland Police Department

Officers’ officers

Assn. also contributed $5,000 to Thurmond’s campaign. In 2020, the Oakland school board voted to abolish campus police amid national protests over the death of George Floyd. Although Thurmond has spoken out against police brutality and institutional racism, he took a more tempered approach at the time, calling not for the removal of officers from schools but for programs such as implicit bias training.

Thurmond’s run for governor was announced a day after Newsom signed a bill banning textbooks

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ones set in red states and attempted by conservative school boards in California. Like Newsom, Thurmond has joined increasingly politicized school culture wars, launching a textbook task force in June.

Voters overwhelmingly re-elected Thurmond last year, despite criticism of his handling of schools during the election

COVID-19

pandemic and an alleged turnover problem at the Department of Education amid accusations of running a toxic workplace.

The California Department of Education’s third director of communications, Maria Clayton Thurmond, left her post this month and could not be reached for comment.

Thurmond also came under fire in 2021 for hiring an out-of-state friend as a top education official,

what a decision that is

violated California policy and led to at least two resignations.

Kounalakis has raised more than $2.6 million for her campaign

for governor

, including the maximum allowable donation of $36,400 from several Democratic heavyweights. They include: her father

,

Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, a real estate developer; Susie Tompkins-Buell, co-founder of clothing brands Esprit and North Face; George Soros, a financier who has donated to many progressive causes; and Sheryl Sandberg, a former Facebook executive

.

Former state comptroller Betty Yee also plans to run for office. She said Tuesday she will make her campaign official next year. For now, she says she’s focusing on the presidency

Joe

Biden was re-elected to her current position as vice chair of the California Democratic Party.

Yee, an Asian American, joins Thurmond in the race to become the first person of color to be named governor of California, and Kounalakis in the race to become the first female governor in California.

Atty. General Rob Bonta has also said he is “seriously considering” running for office in three years’ time.