In the Race

As lieutenant governor, Kounalakis has already served as acting governor of California more than a dozen times. If elected, she would become the first woman governor of the nation’s most populous state. 

“We’re in a time where women’s rights are being attacked in ways that were inconceivable before Donald Trump won,” she told Politico. “I am the first woman elected lieutenant governor of California, and God willing, I will be the first woman elected governor.”

DAM profiled Kounalakis in 2010, when she was the U.S. ambassador to Hungary.