Atkins

Among the small army of prospects who’ve eyed the California governorship, none seemed more qualified than Toni Atkins.

After serving on the San Diego City Council, she moved on to Sacramento, where Atkins led both the Assembly and state Senate, one of just three people in history — and the first in 147 years — to head both houses of California’s Legislature.

She negotiated eight state budgets with two governors and, among other achievements, passed major legislation on abortion rights, help for low-income families and a $7.5-billion water bond.

You can disagree with her politics but, clearly, Atkins is someone who knows her way around the Capitol.

She married that expertise with the kind of hardscrabble, up-by-her-bootstraps backstory that a calculating political consultant might have spun from whole cloth, had it not been so.

Atkins grew up in rural Appalachia in a rented home with an outdoor privy. Her first pair of glasses was a gift from the local Lions Club. She didn’t visit a dentist until she was 24. Her family was too poor.

Yet for all of that, Atkins’ gubernatorial campaign didn’t last even to 2026, when voters will elect a successor to the termed-out Gavin Newsom. She quit the race in September, more than eight months before the primary.

She has no regrets.

“It was a hard decision,” the Democrat said. “But I’m a pragmatic person.”

She couldn’t and wouldn’t keep asking “supporters and people to contribute more and more if the outcome was not going to be what we hoped,” Atkins said. “I needed sort of a moonshot to do it, and I didn’t see that.”

She spoke recently via Zoom from the den of her home in San Diego, where Atkins had just returned after spending several weeks back in Virginia, tending to a dying friend and mentor, one of her former college professors.

“I was a first-generation college kid … a hillbilly,” Atkins said. She felt as though she had no place in the world “and this professor, Steve Fisher, basically helped turn me around and not be a victim. Learn to organize. Learn to work with people on common goals. … He was one of the first people that really helped me to understand how to be part of something bigger than myself.”

Over the 22 months of her campaign — between the launch in January 2024 and its abandonment on Sept. 29 — Atkins traveled California from tip to toe, holding countless meetings and talking to innumerable voters. “It’s one thing to be the speaker or the [Senate leader],” she said. “People treat you differently when you’re a candidate. You’re appealing to them to support you, and it’s a different conversation.”

What she heard was a lot of practicality.

People lamenting the exorbitant cost of housing, energy and child care. Rural Californians worried about their dwindling access to healthcare. Parents and teachers concerned about wanton immigration raids and their effect on kids. “It wasn’t presented as a political thing,” Atkins said. “It was just fear for [their] neighbors.”

She heard plenty from business owners and, especially, put-upon residents of red California, who griped about Sacramento and its seeming disconnection from their lives and livelihoods. “I heard in Tehama County … folks saying, ‘Look, we care about the environment, but we can’t have electric school buses here. We don’t have any infrastructure.’ ”

Voters seemed to be of two — somewhat contradictory — minds about what they want in their next governor.

First off, “Someone that’s going to be focused on California, California problems and California issues,” Atkins said. “They want a governor that’s not going to be performative, but really focused on the issues that California needs help on.”

At the same, they see the damage that President Trump and his punitive policies have done to the state in a very short time, so “they also want to see a fighter.”

The challenge, Atkins suggested, is “convincing people … you’re absolutely going to fight for California values and, at the same, that you’re going to be focused on fixing the roads.”

Maybe California needs to elect a contortionist.

Given her considerable know-how and compelling background, why did Atkins’ campaign fizzle?

Here’s a clue: The word starts with “m” and ends with “y” and speaks to something pernicious about our political system.

“I hoped my experience and my collaborative nature and my ability to work across party lines when I needed to … would gain traction,” Atkins said. “But I just didn’t have the name recognition.”

Or, more pertinently, the huge pile of cash needed to build that name recognition and get elected to statewide office in California.

While Atkins wasn’t a bad fundraiser, she simply couldn’t raise the many tens of millions of dollars needed to run a viable gubernatorial race.

That could be seen as a referendum of sorts. If enough people wanted Atkins to be governor, she theoretically would have collected more cash. But who doubts that money has an unholy influence on our elections?

(Other than Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who spent much of his career fighting campaign finance reform, and members of the Supreme Court who green-lit today’s unlimited geyser of campaign spending.)

At age 63, Atkins is not certain what comes next.

“I’ve lost parents, but it’s been decades,” she said. “And to lose Steve” — her beloved ex-college professor — “I think I’m going to take the rest of the year to reflect. I’m definitely going to stay engaged … but I’m going to focus on family” at least until January.

Atkins remains optimistic about her adopted home state, notwithstanding her unsuccessful run for governor and the earful of criticisms she heard along the way,

“California is the place where people dream,” she said. “We still have the ability to do big things … We’re the fourth-largest economy. We’re a nation-state. We need to remember that.”

Without losing sight of the basics.

San Diego Democrat and former state Senate leader Toni Atkins dropped out of the 2026 California governor’s race Monday, part of a continued reshuffling and contraction of the wide field of candidates vying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Atkins told supporters in a letter Monday afternoon that during a childhood in rural Virginia, she often felt “too country, too poor, too gay” to fit in. After building a life on the West Coast, where she found acceptance and opportunity, she worked for decades to build on “the promise of California” and extend it to future generations, she said.

“That’s why it’s with such a heavy heart that I’m stepping aside today as a candidate for governor,” Atkins wrote. “Despite the strong support we’ve received and all we’ve achieved, there is simply no viable path forward to victory.”

Atkins began her political career on the San Diego City Council after serving as a women’s clinic administrator. She became the first out LGBTQ+ person to serve as Senate president pro tem, the top position in the California Senate. She was also the speaker of the state Assembly, making her the first legislator since 1871 to hold both leadership posts.

In Sacramento, Atkins was a champion for affordable housing and reproductive rights, including writing the legislation that became Proposition 1 in 2022, codifying abortion rights in the California Constitution after national protections were undone by the U.S. Supreme Court.

With President Trump and his allies “gutting health care, cratering our economy, and stripping away fundamental rights and freedoms,” Atkins told supporters Monday, “we’ve got to make sure California has a Democratic governor leading the fight, and that means uniting as Democrats.”

Under California’s nonpartisan primary system, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Votes on the left could be fractured among a half-dozen Democratic candidates, creating a more viable path forward for one of the two high-profile Republicans in the race to make it to the November ballot.

Atkins picked up millions of dollars in donations after entering the governor’s race in January 2024, and reported having $4.3 million on hand — more than most candidates — at the end of the first half of the year. More recent reports from major donations suggest her fundraising had lagged behind former Orange County-based U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former state Atty. Gen. and Biden appointee Xavier Becerra.

Although well-known in political circles, Atkins is not a household name. Recent polls, including one conducted by UC Berkeley and co-sponsored by The Times, showed her support in the single digits.

Nine months before the primary, the field of candidates is still in flux, and many voters are undecided.

At the end of July, former Vice President Kamala Harris made the biggest news of the campaign when she said she would not run. Shortly afterward, her political ally Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis abandoned her gubernatorial bid and announced she would run for state treasurer.

Some polling has shown that Porter, who left Congress after losing a bid for a rare open seat in the U.S. Senate, is the candidate to beat.

Last week, lobbyist and former state legislative leader Ian Calderon, 39, launched his campaign for governor, calling it the advent of a “new generation of leadership.”

Calderon, 39, was the first millennial elected to the state Assembly and the youngest-ever majority leader of the state Assembly. He is part of a political dynasty from southeastern Los Angeles County that’s held power in Sacramento for decades.

His family’s name was clouded during his time in Sacramento when two of his uncles served prison time in connection with a bribery scheme, but Calderon was not accused of wrongdoing.

Charity Dingle is fiercely protective over her children and grandchildren in Emmerdale. Emma Atkins can relate, but she reveals she has another concern for her son Albert.

Charity Dingle’s family is on the verge of implosion in Emmerdale – but Emma Atkins is more concerned about her son’s education.

Soap legend Emma Atkins admits that her own experience as a mother helped her bring depth to Charity Dingle’s antics in Emmerdale. Emma welcomed her son Albert, now 10, with long-term partner Tom in 2015.

“I’m fiercely loyal,” she says, “My love for Albert runs very deep but at the same time, I want him to be his own person. In that regard, Charity and I are similar.” For Emma, parenting is a balance between protecting her son while letting him learn to navigate the world by himself.

“I want him to stand on his own two feet and grow up knowing that I have given him that freedom to make decisions for himself, even at an early age,” Emma says.

“I don’t want to be telling him what to do all the time. I try not to be possessive over my own child. I’ll be there to steer him and encourage him in the right direction.”

Emma’s nurturing instinct extends beyond family. She has stayed close with many of her Emmerdale co-stars over the years, particularly Charley Webb, who played her daughter Debbie for nearly two decades. “If I’ve worked with them, you can bet your life that I’m still in touch with them,” she says.

She’s equally bonded with current cast members. “I’m very close to Katie Hill, we share a dressing room. We’re like sisters,” Emma says. Her friendship with Belle Dingle actress Eden Taylor-Draper is just as strong. “We’ve been friends for years,” she says.

And despite John Sugden being one of the most sinister villains in recent Emmerdale history, Emma only has praise for Oliver Farnworth, who plays the sinister surgery receptionist.

“He’s such a gorgeous human being and so different to John,” she says, “Whenever we’re on set together we spend our time talking about animals because he’s a big animal lover and so am I.”

Over the years, Emma’s portrayal of Charity has won her a loyal following and recognition from critics and fans alike. She has been nominated for multiple TV awards and eventually scooped Best Soap Actress at the TV Choice Awards as well as Best Actress at the Inside Soap Awards.

But Emma insists the real secret to her success is knowing how to separate her on-screen havoc from her off-screen serenity. “I’ve learned to keep it simple,” she says, “But Charity’s world is too chaotic for me.”

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Things are about to take yet another drastic turn. The Woolpack landlady faces another storm as she desperately tries to keep her clandestine fling with Ross Barton (Mike Parr).

The tryst is threatening to blow apart her entire family as Charity once vowed to act as a surrogate for her granddaughter Sarah and her boyfriend Jacob – but the baby Charity is now carrying may not even be theirs.

If that wasn’t enough, she’s also reeling from the apparent loss of her husband Mackenzie, who was seemingly bludgeoned to death by John Sugden in a recent and chilling instalment – until it was revealed the hunk was alive and kept hostage in a mystery bunker.

For Emma, who has played Charity for more than 20 years, Mackenzie’s return was never in doubt, despite ITV viewers predicting the worst.

“I had no doubt that Mackenzie would be okay because he’s so good, Lawrence is incredible,” she says. “I knew it would be very exciting for the audience to wonder what his fate would be.

They built a special set for the bunker. We were both very excited.” She adds: “This storyline is proving to be my favourite at the moment. But how will Charity find out Mackenzie is in danger?

Away from the chaos of the Dales, Emma leads a far more peaceful life. She’s even got an unexpected passion – and a special interest for trees. “I’ve always loved taking pictures,” she says.

“I had a Canon 5D and the shutter broke so I turned to my iPhone and decided to take photos of wherever I’d go in nature. It was a good therapy tool.”

That escape to the outdoors is key for Emma, who spends much of her screen life in the middle of brawls, fiery arguments and messy romances.

“I spend most of my time walking the dog out in nature,” she says, “That’s the best way to decompress, it’s what I love doing the most.Trees are beautiful in all seasons. The older and taller, the better.”

On-screen, Charity is defined by her fiery personality and protectiveness, especially when it comes to her children and grandchildren. But her determination to keep them out of trouble sometimes triggers more hassle and harm than intended.

Now, with affairs, betrayals and deadly secrets, Charity Dingle is facing one of the most dramatic times of her life in Emmerdale. Will she come out of it unscathed?

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