Former Biden administration Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced on Wednesday that he’s running for governor of California in 2026 to succeed term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat.
During his four years at HHS, Becerra drew criticism from within the Biden White House for his handling of both the COVID-19 pandemic response and the monkeypox outbreak, as well as for losing track of thousands of illegal immigrant children, many of them unaccompanied minors.
Becerra—whose name Joe Biden famously mispronounced when the then-president-elect nominated him to the HHS post—previously served as California’s attorney general and before that as a 12-term member of Congress.
Becerra joins a Democrat gubernatorial primary field that includes former Congresswoman Katie…
