San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan is joining the race to become governor of California, offering himself as a big city mayor with experience in the trenches who can deliver answers to vexing problems like homelessness and lack of housing construction.
Mahan, who was elected mayor of the Bay Area’s largest city in 2022, joins a crowded field that includes a former state Assembly speaker and Los Angeles mayor, the state superintendent of public instruction, an East Bay congressman, a former California attorney general who was also U.S. secretary of health and human services, a former member of the House of Representatives, and a billionaire and climate activist, among others.
“I’m running because I know that we can build a better California, and I know it because we’re proving it in San Jose on many of the biggest challenges we face,” Mahan said in an interview Wednesday night before making his decision public…