Four Democrats, one Republican, and one Green Party member are running for state controller, according to the certified list of candidates for the June 7 primary election. Under California’s term limits, Controller Betty Yee is not eligible to seek re-election for a third term.
The Democratic candidates are State Board of Equalization Chair Malia Cohen, Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin, state Senator Steve Glazer, and Monterey Park Mayor Yvonne Yiu.
Lanhee Chen, the lone Republican in the race, is the only major candidate who is not an elected official. Chen is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and the director of domestic policy studies and lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University (he is on leave from the posts while running for office). He has served as a policy director and advisor to several political campaigns, including four presidential campaigns, and served on the Social Security Advisory Board.
The Green Party candidate, activist and financial analyst Laura Wells, is a perennial candidate for controller and other offices. She received roughly 5.7 percent of the vote in the 2014 primary for controller and finished nearly 77 percentage points behind incumbent Barbara Lee in the 2018 general election for a Los Angeles district in the U.S. House of Representatives.