Ex-Clinton staffer enters crowded race for governor
Amanda Renteria, a Central Valley native who was political director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, has jumped into the race for governor less than a month before the March 9 filing deadline.
Renteria, 43, has also worked as an aide for California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and was chief of staff for Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow. She did her undergraduate studies at Stanford, where she played softball and basketball, and earned her master’s in business administration at Harvard.
Renteria’s late entry into the jam-packed field to replace termed-out Gov. Jerry Brown comes as a surprise. Four Democrats and three Republicans already have emerged as leading candidates and some, like Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, have been raising money for years.
“It’s such a scramble in the governor’s race that she might think she’s got a chance to get into the top two” and make it to the November ballot, said Larry Gerston, a political analyst
and former political science professor at San Jose State University.
“But considering the distance that Newsom and (former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio) Villaraigosa have placed between themselves and the rest of the field, it’s more likely she’s running to broaden her exposure, not necessarily for this race but for something in the future,” Gerston said.
This won’t be Renteria’s first try for political office. In 2014, she ran against GOP Rep. David Valadao of Hanford (Kings County). Although she raised more than $1.7 million for the campaign and had the backing of big-name Democrats from across the nation, Renteria was beaten badly, collecting only 42 percent of the vote.
There was an on-the-fly feel to Renteria’s decision, which she still had not officially announced as of Wednesday afternoon. According to the California secretary of state’s website, Renteria has formed a committee to collect money for her run, although no contributions have been reported.
She was unable to be reached for comment.
As the Clinton campaign’s political director, Renteria worked to put together various constituencies for the presidential candidate — women, Latinos, seniors, union members and others. Since April, she has been chief of operations for state Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
In a Twitter and Facebook post Wednesday morning, she said she was holding on to the job. “For questions coming in right now: I am still serving as the Chief of Operations at the California Department of Justice,” she wrote.
Becerra’s office, however, said Wednesday was Renteria’s last day on the job.
Renteria, who grew up in the Central Valley and most recently lived in Sanger (Fresno County), is little known among California voters and would need a boatload of cash for the TV advertising needed to gain name recognition across the state.
But Renteria also has an intriguing personal story. The daughter of former farmworkers, she was a scholarship student at Stanford, walked on to the softball and basketball teams and taught high school for a year in her hometown of Woodlake (Tulare County). She’s also been a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs.
As a Latina, Renteria also brings something different to the mix of candidates and can carve out a place in the campaign for governor.
“I suspect that if you got her in a quiet corner, she would say she doesn’t expect to win,” Gerston said. “But that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t give herself the chance to get some experience that could help her downstream.” John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth