Background: Malia M. Cohen is an American politician who is serving as the California State Controller. She is the first African American woman to be the state's chief fiscal officer. Cohen was raised in San Francisco and she served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors where she chaired the Budget and Finance Committee before being elected to the Calfiornia State Board of Equalization. Since 2023 when she got her State Controller roll, she manages California's financial resources, oversees state payroll and audits, and directs states accounting systems.

Campaign: As Cohen runs fo re-electrion to a second term as State Controller in 2026, her campaign focuses on fiscal transparency, modernization, and economic accountability. Endorsed by the California Democratic Party and major labor unions, she emphasizes her success in catching up on backlogged state financial reports and pledges to upgrade internal financial IT infrastructure. With California managing multi-billion dollar budget deficits, her platform centers on urging the legislature to show restraint while ensuring equitable distribution of tax dollars to working-class communities.

Controversies: Cohen's re-election faces criticism from her opponents over unfulfilled promises from her 2022 campaign, specifically her pledge to conduct aggressive audits of the state's homelessness programs, the DMV, and the Employment Development Department. Critics and political challengers have used a 2024 independent state auditor's report. This report revealed that California failed to sufficiently track billions in homelessness spending. This was used to argue that she had not acted as an effective fiscal watchdog.

Background: Herb W. Morgan is a businessman, financial executive, and a Republican politician who is currently serving as the Chief Investment Officer of Cantor Fitzgerald Investment Advisors. Residing in San Diego, he spent nearly 4 decades managing financial systems, corporate investments, and fiduciary assets. Before joining Cantor Fitzgerald, Morgan built a career in the private sector as the founder and CEO of an independent asset management firm, which he successfully operated until its acquisition.

Campaign: Running as the chief Republican challenger for California State Controller, Morgan's campaign focuses on technological modernization and strict fiscal discipline to get rid of fraud and waste. As he is a political outlander in a heavy Democratic sate, his platform emphasizes the state's failure to track billions in homelessness funding, promising to establish a database that logs every transaction made by state-funded non-profits. He also advocates for implementing an advanced AI tool to monitor state spending and flag suspicious activity. A concept he mirrors by running a near real-time financial transparent dashboard for his own campaign contributions.

Controversies: Morgan does not carry a record of political scandals however, his candidacy faces skepticism regarding the realistic feasibility of his proposed "radical transparency" reforms. Critics have also pointed out that using an AI driven transaction level database for every state dollar and non-profit partner would face huge logistical, privacy, and bureaucratic hurdles within California's notoriously rigid IT infrastructure. As an un-elected private sector executive running under the Republican banner, his campaign faces friction from critics who argue that his lack of government auditing experience makes his proposals overly idealistic. Critics also argue that his corporate financial background aligns too closely to that of the conservative pushes to cut or scrutinize public welfare systems.