Jon Slavet, tech entrepreneur and Republican, announces run for governor

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Republican Jon Slavet, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, announced Thursday that he was joining the crowded field of candidates running for governor next year to replace termed-out Gov.Gavin Newsom.Slavet, 58, a former longtime Democrat who has never run for political office previously, said in an interview on Thursday that he believed that his business background provided the best foundation to fix the state’s problems — poverty, homelessness, unemployment, energy costs — based on conversations with California voters.

“We’re first in all of the wrong things,” Slavet said.“I’m an entrepreneur and an executive and a doer.

I’ve built multiple companies over the years, and my bent is to do and to build and to fix things.“I’m not going to sit by while California goes deeper into the ditch.I have a particular background that is really relevant for getting involved,” he added.

“So when I look at California and I look at the government, what I’ve learned is [that] the subtext is that we have government-made problems.In California, they’re man-made problems.

And it’s incredibly frustrating to understand that, and it’s also inspiring, because we can change leadership.We can change policy and radically change the trajectory of the state.”Slavet joins a crowded field of candidates vying to become the leader of the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

California The wide-open race to succeed Gavin Newsom as California governor has already attracted a large and diverse field of candidates.For more than two decades, gubernatorial elections in California have been dominated by prominent personalities on both sides of the aisle, such as Newsom and former Govs.Arnold Schwarzenegger, a global celebrity, and Jerry Brown, a California political icon.But the 2026 field is more staid, making the outcome of the race difficult to ...