Meet the Green Party candidate running for governor

Running on a platform to “take back the power” from the traditional two-party system, Butch Ware is hoping to be the first Green Party governor of California.

Ware is an activist, organizer and academic historian - not a politician, which he sees as a benefit to his campaign. An anti-capitalist, anti-zionist, Black and Muslim candidate, Ware brings a far-left of center perspective to his policy ideas that are largely not seen in the agendas of his fellow Democratic and Republican candidates. A snafu with the California Secretary of State, however, has left Ware off of the June 2 primary ballot, leading him to run a write-in campaign.

There are five principal points of Ware’s platform: universal single-payer health care, tackling the housing affordability crisis via addressing the state’s wealth disparities, standing up for human rights, education, specifically universal Pre-K and free college tuition and divestment from occupation.

“The reason why I'm running is because there isn't another candidate in the race that is running to deliver those things for the people,” Ware told CALÓ News. “And the people need those things.”

Health care as a right

The first point of Ware’s five-point plan, health care, hinges on a single-payer system wherein one state agency funds and regulates the health care of every Californian at no cost to the individual. Advocates and lawmakers have tried and failed to establish this form of universal health care nearly a dozen times in California.

The most recent attempt, an assembly bill promoting “CalCare,” died in the legislature before there was a public discussion or vote.

“[Democrats] used to at least pretend that they were going to try to get you universal single-payer health care. Now it's just mask off,” Ware said. “People have to understand that as long as the Democrats are in power in the executive and legislative branches, there will be no progress.”

Ware, an associate professor of history at UC Santa Barbara, said on day one in office he would declare a public health emergency to activate a single-payer system. The governor, however, cannot unaliterally set up such a system through something like a public health emergency or even an executive order. 

The state would require federal authority to establish single payer, since it would need to restructure the way federal Medicare dollars are spent - a request President Donald Trump would almost certainly deny. 

Ware believes that if he were to throw his weight behind single payer as governor, the Legislature would be forced to support it given the public support for the idea.

A poll conducted this year by the California Nurses Association, one of the biggest backers of CalCare, showed 58% of all voters supported a single-payer system, with 86% of Democratic voters backing it.

Protecting immigrant communities

California’s immigrant communities have been continuously targeted by the president’s mass deportation agenda. 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested over 14,000 people in the Los Angeles area in 2025 and deported at least 8,250 people from California during the first nine months of 2025 alone, according to the Deportation Data Project.

His plan to protect California’s immigrants is inspired in part by the mobilization of Minnesotan communities earlier this year when the state saw an influx of federal immigration enforcement.

A mass resistance to federal agents was organized by everyday people resolute in protecting and warning their neighbors of ICE presence through community watches, rapid response and mass protests.

“I've never seen a community so organized,” Ware said. “Well, that community was organized without any support or help from any authorities.”

Ware’s thinking is: If a community could organize in that way without assistance from its elected leaders, what could a community do with dedicated government resources?

“I'm gonna actually channel resources to the community organizations that are keeping our community safe,” he said. “Because first of all, we keep us safe.”

The second part of his plan includes prosecuting state law enforcement that cooperates with “federal abductions of Californians.”

“I will absolutely make a stand with every single resource,” Ware said. “We will fight them in every court. We will fight them on every corner.”

Ensuring what he sees as basic human rights for all is also a main point in Ware’s campaign. He remains steadfast in his criticism of the state of Israel and what he believes to be a genocide in Palestine. 

He calls for “a state divestment from imperialism,” including pulling all Californian tax dollars from companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin who supply technology and weapons to Israel.

Addressing homelessness

Another key pillar of Ware’s campaign is addressing the massive wealth disparity in California. 

With over 200 billionaires living in California, the state has the highest percentage of ultra-rich residents, according to Forbes. There are also roughly 187,000 individuals experiencing homelessness, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

“How is it okay?,” Ware posed. “It is not a sustainable state of affairs. It is a sign of a deep moral rot at the heart of our society and our politics.”

Ware’s answer to that disparity? “We have to tax the shit out of those billionaires.” 

He proposes a 2% overall tax increase for billionaires in the state, as well as a 5% initial wealth tax. There is currently a one-time 5% tax that supporters are looking to get on the November ballot.

Not taking corporate donations opens the door for other “creative fixes,” Ware said. If elected governor, he would also want to see a state-owned grocery store in every county to bring down the price of groceries and help alleviate food deserts.

A write-in campaign

Ware will not appear on the primary ballot. Secretary of State Shirley Weber disqualified him from being on the ballot due to claims that the candidate’s tax returns were incomplete. A Sacramento judge rejected Ware’s appeal in March.

While he waits for a federal appeal to play out, Ware has been encouraging his supporters to simply write his name in. 

“Finding the name of your candidate is going to take 15 seconds,” Ware said. “It will take three seconds to skip right past that and say, ‘I ain't reading all that.’”

Clearing things up

As the only Muslim candidate, and the only candidate running outside of the traditional parties, Ware knows there are many misconceptions about him and his views. 

While often criticized for being absent in between presidential elections, Green Party candidates currently hold at least 160 elected offices countrywide, according to the party’s website.

“There's a reason for that. It's that everybody loves our platform … when people get a chance to vote for Greens, they vote for Greens.”

On a personal note, Ware, who converted to Islam at 15, has faced online criticism over claims that he is pro-life and anti-trans, which he says could not be further from the truth.

“I think that because I'm a Muslim and people have misconceptions about Islam, they're quick to, like, paint me as some kind of religious bigot but my faith is rooted in tolerance. My faith is rooted in love for all of humanity.”

Final pitch to voters

Ware is influenced by the model of the Black Panthers, which he describes as “mutual aid plus direct action plus electoral power, in that order of importance.”

His time as governor would follow that formula.

“What I'm going to do with my electoral power is I'm going to provide support to the groups that are doing the work on the ground, to the people that are building community, to the mutual aid organizations, to the churches and to the mosques and to the temples that are feeding the poor.

“We're going to provide all of the support to those groups, and we're going to stop stealing from working people and funneling that to wealthy people. And I think, to be honest, that is the reason why they're so afraid of my candidacy. It's because it appeals to people that are in very different places on the ideological spectrum.”