Caitlyn Jenner has said she has filed paperwork to run for governor of California in a bid to become the first transgender American to win such a high-profile post.
The 71-year-old transgender icon and former decathlete said that she would formally launch her campaign – presumably as a Republican – in the coming weeks.
Jenner’s governorship bid is considered a long shot by experts.
Jenner is the most high-profile non-politician to run for governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger clinched a shock victory as a Republican in California’s 2003 recall election. He served as governor for more than seven years.
Current governor Gavin Newsom, a 53-year-old Democrat from San Francisco, faces a backlash over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly his stay-at-home order that hit businesses hard.
California is expected to hold its second-ever recall election sometime this year. The state’s anti-Newsom petition may secure the necessary number of signatures to trigger a recall vote.
‘I am a proven winner and the only outsider who can put an end to Gavin Newsom’s disastrous time as governor,’ said Jenner.
She drew attention to Newsom’s attending a now-infamous lunch last year with lobbyists at an opulent Napa Valley restaurant during a partial lockdown, while small businesses were devastated and a generation of children lost a year of education.
Jenner said that hers ‘will be a campaign of solutions, providing a roadmap back to prosperity to turn this state around and finally clean up the damage Newsom has done to this state’.
[Image: David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile]