Matt Mahan for Governor

Join Mayor Matt Mahan’s campaign to make California work for all of us by holding our leaders accountable, putting toxic politics aside, and making sure government at every level is working smarter to solve our problems and uphold our values. Mahan is running to unite Californians around the basic common-sense ideas that build a better future for every family.

Matt Mahan is the Democratic Mayor of San Jose. He is running for Governor to get California back to basics, so we can lower costs, end unsheltered homelessness, make every community safer, and expand economic opportunity for all Californians.

The son of a public-school teacher and letter carrier, Matt Mahan grew up in working-class Watsonville, California, where dinner conversations about the struggles facing families living paycheck to paycheck sparked fueled his desire to affect change.

He worked his way through high school as a groundskeeper before going on to Harvard University--where he served student body President and met his wife Sylvia.

After graduation, he served for a year in the Peace Corps working on projects to expand economic opportunity in Bolivia before coming home and spending five years as a public-school teacher in San Jose’s East Side Community. He went on to lead two separate technology start-ups—Causes and Brigade—which have helped millions of Americans generate support for non-profit service providers and expand engagement in the civic process.

As Matt helped launch innovative tools to get more people involved in causes and communities, he rolled up his sleeves to serve the City of San Jose, joining a variety of neighborhood and civic boards, including the City’s Clean Energy Advisory Commission. But he also believed City Hall could deliver better results, so he ran for City Council in 2020 and knocked on over 10,000 doors to earn the trust of his neighbors.

As a City Council Member, Mahan was a steadfast voice for more responsiveness, focus and accountability at City Hall. In 2022, he won an underdog campaign for Mayor by bringing together nearly 70,000 active volunteers, donors, and grassroots leaders around a common-sense agenda to get local government back to basics — on issues like public safety, infrastructure, homelessness, and housing.

Under Mahan’s leadership, San Jose has streamlined priorities and improved outcomes by communicating clear goals and establishing public dashboards to show taxpayers where every dollar is spent. It’s become the Safest Big City in America, reducing unsheltered homelessness by nearly a third, and achieved the largest expansion of emergency shelter anywhere on the West Coast. He’s taken on utility companies to reduce energy costs for local ratepayers, and he has led efforts to break down barriers to new housing construction--cutting construction costs, speeding up permitting, and unlocking thousands of new housing units.

In 2024, Mahan was re-elected with almost 90% of the vote, and in that same year helped lead the effort to pass Proposition 36, a statewide ballot measure that addresses rising rates of retail theft, unsheltered homelessness, and untreated addiction by restoring tools to enable judges to mandate treatment for repeat offenders.

Today, Matt Mahan is running for Governor because he knows that by getting our state back to basics, we can unite Californians behind common sense ideas that build a better future for every community and every family.