Matt MahanMatt Mahan

We recommend voting for Matt Mahan for Governor.

As Mayor of San Jose, Mahan has done what most Sacramento candidates have only promised: unsheltered homelessness dropped nearly 23% (https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/san-jose-reduces-unsheltered-homelessness-by-double-digits-in-latest-count/) from 2019 levels while the rest of the state got worse, San Jose earned the title of America's safest big city (https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-jose-safest-large-city/3944670/), and thousands of new homes were unlocked through fee cuts and permitting reform. He is the only candidate in this race making a clear case for practical, results-oriented governance — and he has the record to back it up.

We're issuing a strong endorsement because his priorities and record are closely aligned with GrowSF's. Voters should know that Mahan entered the race late and is currently polling in the single digits (https://www.almanacnews.com/calmatters/2026/02/26/no-clear-frontrunner-for-governor-but-new-poll-names-five-with-the-best-shot/) in a crowded field. But early polls lag name recognition and ad spend, and we are more interested in whether a candidate is serious than whether they are currently generating the most media oxygen.

"California simply costs too much, and we need to get back to basics to make our state work again."
Matt Mahan, Mayor of San Jose

Matt Mahan's top policy goals are:

1. Cut the cost of housing

California doesn't have a housing shortage because people don't want to build... it has one because government makes building too expensive, too slow, and too legally difficult. Mahan's housing plan (https://mahanforcalifornia.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Mahan_HousingPlan_030426_9.pdf) attacks all three: cap excessive local fees, require timely approval of projects, simplify CEQA, and update building rules that drive unnecessary cost.

He didn't just design these policies in a campaign office, he enacted them. In San Jose, Mahan's slashed fees and approved construction tax waivers to get stalled downtown projects moving. He even launched an AI-powered pre-review system for building permits that reduced the most common cause of delays. For San Francisco voters, the governor's most important affordability job is making it easier to build housing. Mahan gets that, and he has already started doing it.

2. End street encampments — with real accountability

California has spent billions on homelessness yet still has over 180,000 people unhoused (https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/2023-ahar-part-1-pit-estimates-of-homelessness.html). Mahan's diagnosis is blunt: the state built housing too slowly and too expensively, treated street homelessness as a lifestyle choice rather than a crisis requiring intervention, and let smaller cities off the hook by concentrating the problem in big cities.

His answer is the model he built in San Jose: quick-build interim housing that is cost-effective and dignified, a legal obligation to come indoors when shelter is available, and aggressive use of CARE Court and Prop 36 to mandate treatment for people with serious addiction and mental illness. The results are real: San Jose's unsheltered population dropped ~23% since 2019 (https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/san-jose-reduces-unsheltered-homelessness-by-double-digits-in-latest-count/), a counter-trend against statewide numbers that continued to worsen. As Governor, he would apply a "functional zero unsheltered" metric statewide and tie funding to outcomes.

3. Govern with outcomes, not headlines

One of the recurring frustrations with Sacramento is the gap between what gets announced and what gets delivered. Mahan has a specific fix: tie funding to results (https://mahanforcalifornia.com/), publish public dashboards so everyone can see what's working, and cut off programs that fail. His "Progress Audit" would review every state department, find the waste, and move those dollars to programs that actually deliver.

His case is simple and persuasive: before asking Californians to pay more in taxes, government should show it can do better with what it has. San Francisco voters know exactly why that matters. We have watched too many public systems tolerate cost overruns, delays, and weak follow-through while calling it progress.

On other issues

Public safety: Mahan supported Prop 36 (https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_36,_Drug_and_Theft_Crime_Penalties_and_Treatment-Mandated_Felonies_Initiative_(2024)) when it was politically inconvenient to do so. He supports wider use of real-time intelligence tools, stronger enforcement against organized drug trafficking, and more scrutiny of repeat-offender failures. San Francisco voters looking for a Democrat who will talk plainly about crime and street disorder will find that here.

Education: Mahan wants schools to teach reading with phonics (which works), add more tutoring, and hold schools accountable for results. That matters to SF families who want kids to actually learn, not sit through more process.

Transit and infrastructure: He wants to tie transit funding to whether people actually ride it and whether it runs well. The Bay Area has 27 transit agencies — Mahan wants to cut that overhead. San Francisco benefits when the state rewards good service instead of just writing checks.

Behavioral health and fentanyl: Mahan wants to add at least 10,000 treatment beds by 2030 (https://mahanforcalifornia.com/prop-36/), make it easier to get people with serious mental illness into treatment through CARE Court, and use technology to go after drug trafficking networks. He'd move money from programs that aren't working to ones that are.

Mahan is not promising a fantasy version of California politics where every problem disappears if we spend more and say nicer things. He is making a more serious argument: build capacity faster, enforce standards, measure results, and stop funding failure. That is why we recommend voting for Matt Mahan for Governor.

Source (https://growsf.org/voter-guide/san-francisco-voter-guide-june-2026-election/#governor)

Mayor of San Jose who previously worked on voter engagement platforms in Silicon Valley before joining the San Jose city council in 2021 and becoming mayor in 2023. His tenure has focused on reducing street homelessness through opening numerous tiny homes as alternatives to traditional shelters. As a moderate, he opposes new taxes, advocates temporarily suspending the gas tax, and supports tying government leaders' pay to performance metrics.

Key endorsements: Thrive LA.

This race has been a mess. Eric Swalwell, a former front-runner, withdrew his candidacy after multiple women accused him of sexual harrassment. Incumbent Governor Gavin Newsom has not endorsed in the race, having various personal beefs and issues with the Democratic candidates. There are also exactly two prominent Republicans, and it is plausible, although no longer likely, that they would both be the top-two candidates leaving an all-GOP general election in June.

Matt Mahan is the best serious candidate in the race. He has been effective as Mayor of San José, increasing trust in government and reducing unsheltered homelessness. He also has no union support, allowing him to run as a reformer and in a more moderate lane. He’ll still give the base some “gas tax holiday” slop, but he does not support the incredibly poorly-designed one-time billionaire tax which may be on the ballot in June. He also supported popular-among-voters-though-not-Dem-elite policies like Prop 36 in 2024 to increase penalties for drug crimes and thefts in CA. See my report from last month for more of his policies and persona.

Unfortunately, though he’s ~doubled in the polls in the last month, that’s only to ~9%, and he only has an 8% on the Kalshi prediction market. So, in this case, I have a #2 recommendation for pragmatic voters that don’t want their vote to go to waste: Tom Steyer.

Tom Steyer is a billionaire founder of a successful hedge fund, who instantiates the logical culmination of the far left’s stance that raising money from any external sources is icky: the only pure candidates they have left are, ironically, the ultra-rich. Steyer has been running on an unabashedly left-leaning platform, including abolishing ICE. He’s also the most pro-housing (he has the YIMBY Action endorsement) and by far the smartest of the two leading Democrats in the race.

His opponent, currently leading in polls, is Xavier Becerra. As far as I can tell, Becerra is the most machine of machine Dems in CA right now. He’s running in a “center of the party” liberal-but-not-as-leftist lane with support from unions. His chief of staff and several other staffers were arrested and changed with federal crimes last fall; he proposes freezing state home insurance rates, which would drive more insurers out of the state.

For governor, vote Matt Mahan, unless you’re either very liberal or worried about wasting your vote, in which case vote Tom Steyer.

Mayor of San Jose and former tech entrepreneur. Focus on deregulation; housing production; and fiscal discipline.