Caitlyn Jenner reportedly considering a run for California governor

She’s got the gold medal, now she’s reportedly going for the Golden State. Or at least that’s the word on the street following new rumours that Caitlyn Jenner is seriously considering a run to be California’s next governor.

The former Olympian and Keeping Up With the Kardashians star is reportedly having some big conversations about what it would take to put her name on the ballot and go up against current Governor Gavin Newsom (who has held the post since 2019), in a recall election this fall.

The Republican-run recall campaign is currently centered on Newsom’s immigration and tax policies, but it gained even more steam following his early handling of the current pandemic.

According to Axios, Jenner has been chatting up Republican party members to see what it would take to run against him, and she has been working with longtime Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren to figure out the logistics. (The pair previously met while working with the American Unity Fund, a GOP nonprofit centered on LGBT issues.) Previously, Wren worked with the Donald Trump campaign to raise money for his 2020 election campaign.

If Jenner does go ahead and enter the political arena, it will be similar to how Arnold Schwarzenegger got into the game back in 2003. At the time, the incumbent Democratic governor, Gray Davis, was recalled over his stance on guns (among other things) and having Schwarzenegger on the ballot brought a lot of publicity to the issue. Of course, the movie star won, and he served in the position from late 2003 to early 2011.

This isn’t the first time Jenner, who is now 71, has been involved in politics. She previously supported Trump in his original run for president, and in a 2020 interview with People she revealed that she’s changed her political thinking in recent years. According to her, she no longer sees herself solely as a Republican, but as more “economically conservative, socially progressive.”

Jenner hasn’t commented at time of press, but back in February, her manager shot down reports that she was interested in pursuing a run.

“[Jenner] has never considered running for governor and is very happy doing the work that she is doing to promote LGBT rights and spending time with her 18 grandchildren and 10 children,” Sophia Hutchins said at the time.

According to Deadline, Jenner isn’t actually interested in becoming governor, but is hoping to play the publicity side of it all to get a new TV deal. The publication quotes an unnamed source “close” to the situation as saying that, “Caitlyn Jenner is never going to be governor of California, but she may get herself a new show on a streamer out of all this.”

Jenner, whose last official TV series was the 2016 docuseries I Am Cait, has been in the public eye a little more as of late, rejoining Keeping Up With the Kardashians for the show’s final season and surprising fans by competing on the current season of The Masked Singer.

“You can only work on the golf game for so long,” Jenner shrugged a few weeks ago when she was eliminated from the series and asked why she chose to participate.

Well, it’s safe to say that Jenner could actually be yearning for more golf time in the near future if her name gets on that ballot. 

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