Michael Tubbs

Tubbs was born in south Stockton and grew up in poverty.[3] His mother, Racole Dixon, was a teenager at the time of his birth, and his father, also named Michael Tubbs, is serving a life sentence in prison for kidnapping, drug possession, and robbery.[4] Tubbs has a younger brother named Drevonte.[4]

Tubbs attended Hamilton Middle School. In 2007, while a student at Franklin High School, Tubbs won an essay contest sponsored by Alice Walker. His essay about overcoming the mistakes his parents made was published in the San Francisco Chronicle. He criticized his father's "Scapegoat mentality" and praised his mother for overcoming adversity.[5]

Tubbs graduated with the International Baccalaureate diploma from Franklin High School in 2008. That July, Tubbs was a member of a team of three San Joaquin County teenagers who won a national debate competition in Cincinnati sponsored by the NAACP. They advocated for universal health care, and the debate was followed by a speech by the presidential candidate Barack Obama.[6]

He then attended Stanford University on a need-based scholarship, graduating in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and a Master of Arts in Policy, Leadership and Organization Studies. As an undergraduate, he received a Truman Scholarship, and was the joint winner of the university's Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel award for "distinctive and exceptional contributions to...the quality of student life."[7] During his time at Stanford, he also served as President of the school's NAACP chapter,[8] and interned at the White House.[9]

Tubbs with Senator Kamala Harris in 2020

Tubbs announced his candidacy for Stockton Council District 6 for the November 6, 2012 general election, running against incumbent Dale Fritchen. He won the primary[10] and received a $10,000 campaign donation from Oprah Winfrey after meeting her while she toured the Stanford campus.[11]

Tubbs went on to win the election, receiving 61.7% of the vote, and took office in January 2013 at the age of 22, making him the youngest councilmember in Stockton history and one of the youngest elected officials in the United States.[8] His candidacy was also the subject of a documentary, True Son,[12] which premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.[13]

Tubbs announced his candidacy for mayor of Stockton on September 2, 2015, running against incumbent Mayor Anthony Silva in the 2016 general election.[14] He was endorsed by President Barack Obama on November 2, 2016, less than a week before the election.[15] He went on to win the election, receiving 70.6% of the vote and becoming both the city's first black mayor and at 26 the youngest person to hold that office.[16] His term in office began on January 1, 2017.[8]

Tubbs is a proponent of a Universal Basic Income. As part of the privately-funded S.E.E.D. pilot project in Stockton, the city is providing a $500 stipend to selected residents for an 18-month period with “no strings attached," thanks to the Economic Security Project, an advocacy group chaired by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, which provided the first $1 million for the program, and a dozen other Silicon Valley organizations and private donors who funded the rest of its $3 million budget.[17][18] Tubbs helped assemble a national coalition of mayors who support UBI.[19]

During his term, Tubbs also established an intervention program to reduce gun violence, programs to reduce homelessness, and mentorships for at-risk students.[19]

In December 2019, Tubbs endorsed the Democratic presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg.[20]

During his 2020 reelection campaign, Tubbs was featured in an HBO documentary, Stockton On My Mind.[19] Tubbs lost reelection to a second term as mayor to Republican Kevin Lincoln in the November 3, 2020 election.[21][22] During the campaign, the social media page "The 209 Times", published by an individual who had failed to break into Stockton politics,[19] which has a wide following on Facebook and Instagram, published numerous stories accusing Tubbs of corruption, which local political pundits say were unfounded. Some attributed Tubbs's loss to the influence of those stories, however Tubbs was also opposed by police and firefighters unions.[2]

Tubbs and his wife Anna at a League of Women Voters event

In December 2017 Tubbs married Anna Malaika Nti-Asare, whom he met at Stanford University.[4] After graduating from Stanford with a Bachelor of Arts in medical anthropology in 2014 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and from King's College, Cambridge with a Master of Philosophy in multidisciplinary gender studies in 2015, Nti-Asare spent two years teaching at Aspire Langston Hughes Academy in Stockton. She is now a Gates Cambridge Scholar and a PhD student in education at King's College, Cambridge.[23][24][25]

Tubbs was arrested for driving under the influence in 2014. Tubbs apologized for what he called a "poor decision to drive when I should not have."[26][27] He pled no contest to misdemeanor charges.[28]

On April 14, 2019, Tubbs announced via Twitter that he and his wife were expecting their first child.[29][30] On October 19, 2019, he announced the arrival of a son.[31]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Michael Tubbs.

• Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs - City of Stockton, CA
• KQED radio interview: Stockton’s Fast-Rising Mayor Michael Tubbs