Gloria Romero, a Republican, is running for California Lieutenant Governor in the November 2026 general election against Democrat Fiona Ma, running as gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton’s chosen running mate. Romero holds a Ph.D. in psychology from UC Riverside and was a tenured professor at Cal State Los Angeles before entering politics. As a Democrat, she served in the California State Assembly starting in 1998 and the State Senate starting in 2001, becoming the first woman to serve as California Senate Majority Leader, from 2005 to 2008. She authored the nation’s first “Parent Trigger” law and Open Enrollment Act, landmark school-choice legislation giving parents at chronically failing schools the power to force reforms, after facing resistance within her own party to criminal-justice reform efforts.
After leaving the legislature, Romero founded and led a charter school in Santa Ana and became affiliated with Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy. In September 2024, she left the Democratic Party to register as a Republican, citing disagreements over crime policy, gender-identity policy, COVID-19 lockdowns, and school choice, and accusing her former party of abandoning working-class families and parental rights. The California Republican Party formally endorsed the Hilton-Romero ticket at its April 2026 convention, with Romero emphasizing education reform and school choice as her central issues.
