The Road to 2026: Sharifah Hardie's Vision for California's Transformation

Welcome to another episode of the Transforming Lives panel podcast, where we delve into stories of resilience, advocacy, and transformation. Today, we are joined by Sharifah Hardie, a black conservative Republican entrepreneur, media personality, and single mother who is not your typical politician. Sharifa has faced and overcome numerous challenges, from surviving eight corporate layoffs to rebuilding her life and businesses from scratch. Now, she is running for governor of California in 2026, aiming to bring real change to a state burdened by bureaucracy, high costs, and a justice system that prioritizes incarceration over empowerment. In this episode, Sharifa shares her unflinching story of resilience, her passion for economic empowerment, education reform, and her vision for a better California. Join us as we explore her journey, the challenges she faces, and her unwavering determination to make a difference.

Speaker 1
Welcome to another episode of the Transforming Lives panel podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Sharmin Prince.

Speaker 3
And I'm your other host, Mitzy Dadoun.

Speaker 1
And before we continue, just join us in a brief breathing exercise by taking a deep breath in and out. In And out. Another breath in. And out.

In. And before you exhale, just think of the things that didn't serve you and let it go on the exhale. Just let go of the things that didn't serve you today and the things to do in the remainder of the day. And thank you so much for joining us for that brief breathing exercise and for being a part of the Transforming Lives panel podcast.

Today, we have Sharifa Hardie. And she isn't your typical politician. She's a survivor. a warrior, and a relentless advocate for everyday Californians who've been left behind by a broken system.

A black conservative Republican entrepreneur, media personality, and single mother, Sharifa has lived the struggles she's fighting to fix. from surviving eight corporates layoff to rebuilding her life and businesses from scratch. Now she's running for governor of California in 2026 to bring real change to a state-drowned bureaucracy, skyrocketing costs, and justice system that prioritizes prisons over people. While her opponent pushes a build more prisons agenda, Sharifa is fighting for economic empowerment, education reform, and pathways to success, not incarceration for marginalized communities.

On this podcast, Sharifa will share her unflinching story of resilience. Are you ready? Sharifa, welcome.

Speaker 2
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm honored to be here.

Speaker 1
Is there anything you would like to add to your bio?

Speaker 2
No, that was incredible. Thank you.

Speaker 1
So my first question, when I read your bio, I saw that you survived eight corporate layoffs, two divorces, and rebuilt your life multiple times. What was the lowest point in that journey and what pulled you through?

Speaker 2
Wow, incredible question. I love it, I love it, I love it. No one has ever asked me that question before. What I consider to be the lowest point, and it's a day and a time that I will never forget.

I had lost everything and I had spent the night at a friend's house and because we got there so late, I didn't even take everything out of my car. I put my laptop in the trunk of my car and I went in the house. I came out the next day and my passenger door was wide open. And I look in the car and everything is gone.

Somebody has stolen everything. They even had popped the trunk and stolen my laptop. And I wasn't concerned about anything aside from my laptop, because I always feel as long as I have a cell phone and a laptop, I can change the world. Because I need the laptop to do all my internet research, and then I need the phone to call for help.

And so out of this laptop, I was really stuck, and I was stranded. And so I remember telling myself at that moment, I said, they are trying to kill me. They are literally trying to kill me. And this was 2014, way before I even heard of Sheriff Chad Bianco, which is the person I refer to with his model of building more prisons.

Because so many people are concerned about immigration and they feel that immigrants are taking our jobs, they just want them out of sight and lock them up in prisons. But I knew that when I say they were trying to kill me or they were trying to take my life away, what they wanted me to do, when I say they, I mean the system, it's not one particular person, not one particular race, it's the system that was created. Most people don't even realize that private prisons didn't even exist prior to 1985.

We always assumed that this was really an American thing, that it's always been this way, and it hasn't been this way. Private prisons began in 1985 and they were created with the sole purpose to receive labor from the people And so I said, they're trying to make me do something crazy, rob a bank, do something illegal. And I always felt, and I still believe to this day that doing anything illegal is a sign of a lack of faith. And I have a lot of faith in my God and where I'm going and where my life is going.

But that was the moment where I was like, okay, they are really trying to kill me and get me out here.

Speaker 1
Wow. And what was that one injustice you experienced that lit a fire for you to run for governor? Interesting.

Speaker 2
It wasn't just one thing in particular. Running for governor is my third election. I ran for Long Beach City Council in 2020. I ran for Senate District 33 in 2024.

2026 is for governor. But one of the reasons I'm so passionate about politics is when I first ran for city council, I realized that people had to give me a platform because most people and most organizations want to have the appearance of being unbiased and impartial. So as long as I was an actual candidate, they would give me a platform to talk about the things that I'm passionate about. And one of the things that I'm really passionate about is bringing corporations back to California.

We have a huge homelessness issue here in California. We have a huge issue with mental illness. We have an issue with drugs. We have an issue with not being able to afford housing.

But for me, until a person can take care of themselves, they have too much stress, they have too much pressure to deal with these other issues. So I wanna be able to help Californians and help people get to a calm, peaceful state of mind. That's why I truly enjoy just even taking a moment to stop and breathe because I'm always going, going, going, going. So just taking that breath was able to just ground me and allow me to be present for this conversation.

Speaker 1
Wow. Thank you, thank you. If you could go back in time and whisper one thing to your younger self during your hardest time, what would that be? I

Speaker 2
would whisper, don't give up, don't give up, don't give up, don't give up. And I would say it just like that multiple times. Because in life, what happens is you have mentors, you have teachers, you have people around you, even friends, family, and coworkers who will tell you, you know what, life is not easy. And when you hear life is not easy, we figure, okay, there'll be some bumps along the road, some little hiccups, things that happen.

So we know it's not going to be easy, but we never realized it's going to be this hard. I mean, there are so many obstacles that come towards you that you never even expected. Some of the experience that I've had in campaigning, I was like, oh my God, I didn't know it would be like this. So I just would tell my younger self, no matter what happens, no matter how hard, how difficult it becomes, just don't give up.

You'll make it through.

Speaker 3
What are some of those challenges or really difficult things that have happened to you during the campaigning process?

Speaker 2
I think the most difficult aspect is actually this election, the third election. You know, they say the higher the level, you know, you get a different devil at every new level. So City Council, Senate, they had their own issues. But when I began to run for governor and I would go to speak to people who have supported me in the past or even to the Republican Party, the LAGOP, California GOP, they literally closed the door on me.

There was no pretense of being impartial. There was no, okay, we have to hear you out. We have to hear all our candidates. Every organization that I went to with the party said, no, we're supporting Sheriff Chapioco.

We're supporting Sheriff Chapioco. And this was really surprising to me because again, my belief is that you have to at least give me the opportunity to find out what my campaign and my agenda is about.

Speaker 1
Do you think that the doors are being closed? I'm gonna ask you the obvious question. Is it because of your gender? Is it because of your race?

Why do you think that the sheriff is being preferred? and you are not even given an opportunity to share what you're running on?

Speaker 2
No, I don't think it's my race. I don't believe that it's my gender. I believe that those aspects are a part of it, but not in its entirety. I believe the main reason is because Chad Bianco is a sheriff.

And things happen in divine perfect timing and divine perfect order in one way or another, which means that for the sheriff, this was a perfect storm. He decided to throw his hat in the ring during a time when Californians are really upset and really passionate about immigration. Once Donald Trump, president Donald Trump got into office, all of a sudden you had ice everywhere here in California. And so when you have people who are hungry, people are struggling, there's high inflation, food is actually just, you know, the cost of food is incredible.

So you have people who want a solution. And when people want a solution, they also want someone to blame. So they can look at anyone. They can look at Mitzi and say, you know what, if it wasn't for Mitzi, I would have more.

I would have a better job. I would have a better income. And so they say, let's go lock Mitzi up and put her away. So now we have access to resources.

And so that's what's happened in this situation. It's not personal to me. And that's one of the things that you have to learn as a politician is that get your feelings out of it. Put your feelings to the side because it's not personal.

Sheriff Chad Bianco is not the only Republican candidate. There are approximately six or seven of us at this time, but Sheriff Chad Bianco is the pick because he's a sheriff and people know his reputation. He's a sheriff over Riverside County and Riverside has one of the highest inmate death rates in the nation. Right.

So what they know about the sheriff is that no matter what it costs, no matter what it takes, he's going to lock people up, throw away the key, and nobody can say anything about it. So rather go a peaceful way and focus on job creation and bringing corporations back to California. with tax breaks, it's okay, well, let's just take all the immigrants, take all the people of color. He has civil rights allegations where the attorney general had to step in and file charges against his whole organization.

So it's not about me, it's about when they look at a sheriff who's a white male, they're like, yeah, he'll get it done, he'll take care of it.

Speaker 3
Yeah, I have a question. I'm from Canada, so we don't have private prisons. They're run by the government. So this whole concept of a private prison system where they're making money and they're getting paid for, you know, like you say, like locking people up.

And I don't know, I just, to me, on the surface, that just seems like a recipe for abuse of the system. I don't know, educate me on that aspect, because people can make a transformation and get help when they're in prison if there's resources, or they can go further down the system and get worse and worse because of not having any resources or what have you.

Speaker 2
Well, I love that. I love that you said that, first of all, because from someone in Canada looking at how we operate here in the United States, it really is foreign. when I began to really study and research how private prisons came to be, I was shocked at how new it was. I mean, that was the thing that really shocked me.

But one of the things, one of the movies that I really love is 13th by Ava DuVernay, right? And it explains how when we went from slavery and it brings us up to date. And one of the things that happens that people don't understand is after After slavery, people were technically free, but what they did was instead of making them slaves, they made them into prisoners. And that still stands to this day.

So when they got to 1985 and they realized how much money was in private prisons, it became, I mean, when private, I'm speechless, I'm just aghast about the whole aspect, but when private prisons are being traded on the stock market, Stock market and companies prisons are being penalized for not being full. Right? So, if that prison has empty beds, then they have to pay a penalty.

So, what happens is everything works together. There's not 1 aspect of the system. that's separate. That's why they talk about from school to prison pipeline.

They can tell you by the time you are in kindergarten, they can gear your life to wind up in prison. So none of this is by happenstance. So, you know, I tell people all the time, I was 16 years old. My father had a friend who got the contract to build the irrigation system for the 105 freeway.

And he was looking for an office manager. And my dad said, well, my daughter can help you. She's Free for the summer, she has nothing to do. And I wound up being an office manager, making 16 dollars an hour.

That was years ago. Now, the current minimum wage or the average rate rate is roughly 20 dollars per hour. So, what that means is there's no incentive. for the government to raise the minimum wage or have a cost of living increase, because what they really want is for you to go to prison.

Because why would they pay you $20 an hour when they can pay you 5 cents to do labor? It's all business. It's just business, which is one of the reasons I'm a Republican, because I agree with less government and more individual ability to operate your business, but I want us to create businesses that are not built on the backs of humans.

Speaker 1
Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for the comparison and mention of slavery and the prison system. But as a black conservative woman, in a heavily progressive state like California, what's a criticism you face that actually strengthened your resolve and caused you to be such a force to be reckoned with?

Speaker 2
I love that question. What changed for me was when President Donald Trump won. President Trump received over 6 million votes in California. California is a Democrat blue state, but 6 million people voted for him in California.

So what that tells me is that no matter what the party line is, whether it's Democrat or Republican, people want a change, right? If you order an average meal, I went to get some food the other day. It was, I'm not going to name the restaurant, but it was literally one meal. It was food, a side and a drink, and it was $24.

So what does that mean for the average American family? The mother the father, a couple of kids, that's $100 a night to feed a family. Maybe it's a single mom with four kids. You're still looking at over $100 to feed your family.

Then you also have to look at what people are really struggling. Like I said, they need someone to blame, but they also want change. They don't want the same old, same old. One of the things that people don't realize that here in California is, California is actually undergoing an audit.

There have been billions of dollars, especially during a COVID pandemic, that came into California to help support and give resources to the unhoused. We have a huge homelessness issue. Now, we receive billions of dollars. And guess what?

We have more unhoused people. Because a lot of these nonprofits, the money that they receive is going to the executives, the executive director, the people that they work with. The network is not going directly to the unhoused. We have the same thing here in Long Beach, where there's an audit.

In most California cities, there's an audit because they receive so much money to fight a problem, but there's no money in the cure. There's no money in solving these problems. For every problem, there's someone, some organization, some corporation most likely traded on the stock market that has a direct benefit to your situation. Then when you have these homes and people can't afford housing, guess what?

It's not the small individual, you and me, that's purchasing these properties. These are companies, these are corporations, these are developers who come in and purchase these homes. So now your home that was $1,200 a month, now $3,500, right? So now you have people who are being pushed out.

It's just something that I want to be able to say, look, I believe, and let me just say this for the record, I was born in Washington, DC. I left when I was two, moved to Columbus, Ohio. I've called California home since 1985. During my teenage years, I lived two blocks from Florence and Normandy, which was where Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck and beat during the LA riots.

My whole neighborhood burned down. I've seen more heartbreak and chaos and cities destroyed than the average person. But I still know that what happens when a city is so frustrated, they tend to act out, riot, burn, loot. So, what we have to do is offer them solutions where people can afford to live because right now they can't afford to live and they can't afford to die.

I

Speaker 3
had a question because it seemed almost like a contradiction to me. On the other hand, it sounds like the private corporations are. creating the problems in the prison system and buying up the land and everything and yet for less government involvement where there wouldn't be profit incentives in these areas that you're talking about. So it almost seems like they're opposite to each other.

Speaker 2
No, so the private prisons and the people who own the private prisons are not necessarily the developers who are buying up the homes. that's just corporations and corporate in general. So- I

Speaker 3
realize that, but I'm just saying that the whole concept of less government versus more government, all of those issues that you described were because of greed in private corporations.

Speaker 2
Yes. Okay. Now here in California specifically, there's too much red tape in anything that we have to do. Right.

I'll give you a prime example. If you want to open a restaurant, which you should, but you deal with the health department, the health department comes in regulates what you can or cannot do. They opened up a new opportunity for vendors to set up outside on the streets. And then those people don't go through the health department.

They have different regulations. They don't require the same permits. So, these same people who have no health codes are setting up business. So, I want the actual corporations, the actual restaurants, not these vendors.

to be able to work with the government in order to have less red tape on what they want to do. Because a restaurant who has a brick and mortar is not allowed to set up even a tent in front of their own store and say they want to offer tacos at a separate price. yet an individual can go two doors down from them and set up their own taco cart, not pay any of these fees, not pay any of these permits. So I want government regulation.

I believe in government regulation. I believe that we have to have government, but I also know here in California, in order to incorporate, our fees are the highest in the nation. It costs the company hundreds of dollars in order to be able to incorporate their business. So what happens?

Companies don't incorporate. They wind up doing side hustles, selling things out of the trunk of their car instead of actually creating a business and paying taxes, which helps the economy.

Speaker 1
Wow.

Speaker 2
Did that answer your question? Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1
Sharifa, politicians often avoid showing vulnerability. So one of the things that attracted me to you is how vulnerable you were. And my question is, what's a fear or even a doubt you've had to overcome in this campaign to embrace your story and to be this authentic?

Speaker 2
You guys did your research, you studied it. Great questions to ask. I think the fear for me was having to have hard, difficult conversations with people. It's been my experience for my entire life.

And I started in management. I started supervising companies. My first job out of high school was working for TWA, Trans World Airlines. And I would be in meetings with sales.

And I would say something. And people were like, Oh no, you know, we don't, we're not going to do that. Then the male would literally say the same exact thing. Like, you know what, John, that's a wonderful idea.

That's great. Let's do it. You know, I believe in our society, women aren't allowed the same voice and we're not heard the same way a man is. I don't know if that's going to change.

I don't know if it should change, but I know It is what it is. So often in the past, especially when I ran prior to this, I wouldn't force a conversation per se. If I started to get into a conversation and it became heated or a person didn't see my viewpoint, I would tend to not have that conversation. Because they say one of the things that you never discuss or you shouldn't discuss is politics.

or religion, right? Like you shouldn't discuss that in mixed company. And one of the things that I always tell people is when I hear people say, I don't get involved in politics, what I hear is you don't get involved in the decisions that affect your life, right? So now in running for governor, I'm willing to have every conversation with anyone, no matter who it is.

I want to talk because I really don't think people understand where we are right now. We are at a time where if we don't do something different and we wind up, I don't care if it's anyone else. This is how I truly feel. Besides Sheriff Chad Bianco, we are going to be in a world of hurt.

And so instead of just sitting by and being the docile, demure female, I don't go into my masculine energy. I can still stay in my feminine energy. I'm willing to have the hard conversations and let people know this man runs under the motto of I'm going to build more prisons. That's the answer to his problem.

Let's just build more problems, more prisons. We've built more prisons in California than universities. In the last few years, we've built approximately 18 new prisons and one new university. So that tells you as a people what our focus is.

Our focus is, okay, well, we don't have jobs for these people. We don't have anything for them to do. That's why I agree with President Donald Trump on manufacturing. If we don't manufacture anything, if we don't create anything, if we don't have anything that's made in America, made in California, what are the people to do?

I remember being young and I knew that if nothing else, I could get a job at a call center. Where are your call center jobs? Where are your manufacturing jobs? Where are your jobs for the people?

Because you don't want the people to have jobs. What you want them to do is to get so stressed out that they have no alternative. And now they're going to go out and they're going to do something illegal. And guess what?

Now you can not only lock them up, but you can give them the Scarlet F. The Scarlet F meaning They're a felon. And because they're a felon, I can treat them a certain way. I don't have to give them the job.

I can use this as an excuse not to give them an opportunity to feed their family. And I can tell you, when we talk about gender, male and female, women are going to take care of their families. But if a man is in a household, he is not going to sit in a house and allow his wife, his woman, his children to starve. He's not going to do it.

Speaker 1
But my final question to you is, when the campaign is over, win or lose, how do you hope people will describe Sharifa Hardy, the woman, not the politician?

Speaker 2
Excellent. Let me just say this. I don't look at life as winning or losing. It was an article on the internet that they did about me, and I get all my Google alerts.

So if my name hits the internet, I see it, right? So I didn't even know they were doing this article, but they were writing articles about each of the candidates that were running for governor. So I get this Google alert, and I'm reading this article. And the article is 99% my bio.

So they basically copied and paste, put the bio in. And then at the end, nowhere in the entire article did they even mention my other prior elections. They simply said, she's a two-time loser. I was like, wait a minute, who calls somebody a two-time loser?

You know what I mean? Like, that's not very nice. But I don't look at it like this. I've never went into election and didn't walk out with a new opportunity because I learned that in getting laid off eight times I built my first website in 1994 I'm passionate about building.

companies, building businesses, and not all those companies were successful. And so what happens is during startups, they'll start a company, they'll begin, and maybe it doesn't work out. But they look around and they have a team and they say, oh, you know what? They were great to work with.

I'll take them to the next company. So that's the same thing with running for any political office. You get your name, your face out there. People are like, oh, well, you know what?

I like her attitude. I like the way that she responds. So I may not get that position. It's just like applying for any position.

When you're job hunting, and I'm pretty sure you ladies have job hunted before, you most likely went to the job site and look for multiple jobs, right? You probably just didn't say, oh, I'm gonna apply for this one job I'm done for today, right? No, because you have to, put your net out there, cast a wide net, and then whatever's meant for you will come to you. And that's how I feel about this election.

Get my name, get my face out there. My phone is gonna ring, because my phone continues to ring when people say, you know what? Can you help me with this? I'm a business consultant.

My website, AskSharifa.com, that's what I do. Marketing, SEO, SEM, PR. I help people. And so now once they see, okay, well, she's not gonna be doing this, maybe she will help me.

Speaker 3
Excellent. And that was one of my questions was, was how do people reach you? So you mentioned your website, if you could just say it again and any other contact information.

Speaker 2
Yes. So my, my governor campaign website is Sharifa Hardy for governor.com. Again, that's Sharifa Hardy for governor.com. For my PR and marketing services is AskSharifa.com.

And I always tell people do not face the unknown alone. AskSharifa.com.

Speaker 3
Wonderful.

Speaker 1
Thank you so much, Sharif. And your closing comment.

Speaker 2
I just want to say thank you, beautiful ladies, for the opportunity, for your time, for allowing me on the platform to speak. I greatly, greatly, greatly appreciate it. If there's ever anything that I can do to help you, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. to everyone who is listening, please take some sort of action.

If you can hear my voice and you can feel the passion I have, not only for California, but for politics and for the world in general. If you're sitting at home or if you're sitting in your office and you're asking yourself, well, I don't know what I can do, that I always tell people, go do something for someone else. Go be of service to someone else. Because there are so many people who need help and just maybe need someone to talk to, need someone, you know, need to be a friend.

So I just encourage people to be the change that you want to see in the world. It's also go to my website again as Sharifa Hardy for governor.com. Make your donation, volunteer. I need your support in order to win.