PERSON: Abel Maldonado

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Abel O. Maldonado Jr. (born August 21, 1967) is an American politician who served as the 48th lieutenant governor of California from April 27, 2010 to January 10, 2011. As of 2024, Maldonado is the last member of the Republican Party to serve as Lieutenant Governor of California.

Elected to the Santa Maria City Council in 1994, Maldonado then served as mayor of Santa Maria from 1996 to 1998, when he was elected to the California State Assembly. He served in that body from 1998 to 2004 and then in the California State Senate from 2004 to 2010, running unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for California State Controller in 2006. Maldonado was the first Republican in the State Senate to vote for the budget during the budget deadlock in 2007. He represented a swing district in the Senate and is considered a moderate.

On November 23, 2009, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Maldonado as his nominee for lieutenant governor to fill the vacancy created by Democrat John Garamendi’s election to the United States House of Representatives. Maldonado was sworn into office on April 27, 2010 and was defeated in the 2010 lieutenant gubernatorial election by Democratic San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Maldonado ran for California’s 24th congressional district in the 2012 elections, but was defeated by incumbent Democrat Lois Capps. In May 2013, he announced that he was running for governor in the 2014 election, but dropped out in January 2014 after unsuccessful fundraising efforts and campaign missteps. In 2017, Maldonado was considered for the role of United States secretary of agriculture by Donald Trump, but was ultimately not nominated.

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