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What’s at stake in this race
California’s top cop carries out the governor’s law enforcement directives. The attorney general’s job touches almost every facet of life in California, from the environment to its tech sector and consumer protections. During both Trump administrations, the attorney general’s office led high-profile lawsuits defending policies favored by California Democrats.
Rob Bonta
Party: Democratic
Occupation: Incumbent
Bonta was appointed attorney general in 2021 and was elected to a four-year term in 2022. Before that, he was an assemblymember representing parts of the East Bay. As attorney general, Bonta spent much of his first term enforcing housing and criminal justice laws passed in the early 2020s, including laws compelling recalcitrant cities to build new housing. Since the reelection of Donald Trump, Bonta has filed or joined more than 50 lawsuits against his administration.
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Michael E. Gates
Party: Republican
Occupation: Deputy United States Attorney
Gates, a former trial attorney, served as Huntington Beach city attorney for a decade. In that role, he challenged what he viewed as lenient criminal justice policy emanating from the state capital. He also fought elements of the new housing laws that would have compelled Huntington Beach to build more affordable housing. In 2025, Gates was appointed a deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, a job he left in November when he returned to the Huntington Beach city attorney’s office.
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Marjorie Mikels
Party: Green
Occupation: Attorney/Justice Advocate
Mikels is a longtime Inland Empire litigator who was twice the first female lawyer hired at firms in San Bernardino County before founding her own law firm in 1988. Mikels retired when she decided to run for attorney general to oppose Israel’s bombing campaign of noncombatants in Gaza and the public-private partnership deals between governments and Silicon Valley companies for surveillance technology.
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