By Jeanne Kuang and Jeremia Kimelman, CalMatters
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Campaign donations are both a measure of popular support and a sign of which candidates special interests believe they can influence. CalMatters analyzed campaign finance data in the California governor’s race. Here are five takeaways on where the money is coming from and where it’s going.
Outside money is shattering records
It’s a record-breaking election when it comes to spending by corporations and special interest groups trying to influence who becomes the next governor.
Outside groups, which unlike candidates can receive unlimited donations, reported spending $79 million so far — more than double the amount spent through the November 2018 general election when Gavin Newsom won his first term.
Billionaire Tom Steyer is the biggest target: A political spending committee called California Is Not For Sale, funded by the state Realtors association, the California Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Gas & Electric and the state’s electrical workers’ union poured $32 million into ads opposing him.
Steyer has vowed to lower electricity bills by challenging PG&E’s monopoly in much of Northern California. He’s also promised to pursue a ballot measure that would raise revenue for public services by requiring more accurate property tax assessments on business properties, a move that could upend the commercial real estate market.
Some of the same groups spending against Steyer are running ads for Xavier Becerra. Those groups — along with organizations representing doctors, contractors and several labor unions — have spent $13 million through PACs to boost Becerra.
Chevron, McDonald’s, dialysis giant DaVita and one of the state’s largest oil drillers, California Resources Corp., are funding one of the largest pro-Becerra groups, with each of them contributing $500,000. Meta and AirBnB chipped in about $1 million each and health insurance corporation Centene, which runs California-based HealthNet, put in $100,000.
Steyer is reveling in the spending against him, pointing to it as proof he’d stand up to utilities and big business. A climate activist, Steyer has highlighted Becerra’s support from Chevron.
The progressive unions California Nurses Association and United Domestic Workers have spent a comparatively modest $1.4 million on mailers and digital media boosting Steyer. Outside groups have also spent $1.8 million opposing Republican frontrunner Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host and British political strategist.
Mahan fizzles out
The second-highest outside spending went to boost Mahan, the San Jose mayor and moderate Democrat who entered the race late to much fanfare from Silicon Valley.
California’s tech billionaires urged Mahan to run and backed him with millions in donations and two independent spending committees. They were enamored with his platform of government efficiency and opposition to new taxes — positions that would shield them from the Legislature’s push to regulate tech and raise taxes on the wealthy.
Donors included venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Brian Singerman, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Intuit founder Scott Cook, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Los Angeles developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso.
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The committees spent nearly $22 million on ads supporting Mahan, significantly more than the $9 million his campaign has spent. But the money wasn’t enough to overcome his significant disadvantage in name recognition as the first-term mayor of a city that doesn’t get much attention. Strategists told the committees’ backers they needed at least $45 million to make a difference.
One of the PACs, California Back to Basics, last week returned $1 million from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; Hastings cryptically posted on X that he hadn’t asked for the money back. The refund was an acknowledgement that the committee hadn’t succeeded in raking in a final $10 to $15 million the billionaire backers hoped to raise in the last weeks of the campaign, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said.
Steyer spending breaking its own records
Yet despite his opponents’ deep-pocketed donors, no one has matched the $213 million Steyer has spent on his own campaign, allowing him to blanket the airwaves with ads, pay influencers to post videos with him and send billboard trucks to drive around gas stations highlighting Becerra’s Chevron support.
That makes his the most expensive primary campaign in California gubernatorial history, exceeding that of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, a Republican who spent about $94 million in the June 2010 primary — about $142 million in today’s dollars — spending tens of millions more before losing to Jerry Brown in the general election.
Swalwell donors flocked to Becerra
DaVita, the California Medical Association and the California Professional Firefighters Association all supported former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial bid before he dropped out over sexual assault allegations.
They were among the biggest Swalwell backers to quickly switch to Becerra, who has enjoyed surging support from social media and the Democratic establishment.
Small donors made a similar leap. The CalMatters analysis found that after Swalwell dropped out, more than 500 of his campaign donors went on to contribute to Becerra’s campaign. No other candidate received that much support from former Swalwell donors.
Swalwell, who has also since resigned from Congress, continues to use his gubernatorial campaign to pay more than $313,000 to attorney Sara Azari, who is defending him against the allegations. He has also refunded about $250,000 to nearly 50 donors.
Republican Steve Hilton had the most donors
The Republican frontrunner amassed the highest number of campaign donors in the race: more than 20,000. Nearly a quarter of them live outside California.
The former Fox News host seeks to slash state environmental regulations, build housing on undeveloped suburban land and cut income taxes for the middle class. He received a slight uptick in donations after President Donald Trump endorsed him on April 6.
Katie Porter, the Democratic former congressmember from Orange County and consumer protection attorney, had the second-highest number of donors, with more than 15,000.
She also has the highest share of donors outside California, reflecting her relative national fame from her headline-grabbing time grilling corporate CEOs in Congress.
But fundraising stalled for the onetime progressive darling, who touts her reliance on grassroots donors and refusal to take corporate contributions. From April 18 through May 19 she brought in less money than Mahan.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
How in God’s name is it legal for PG&E to dump tens of millions of dollars into a campaign against someone who is threatening to challenge the monopoly which they are?
John Roberts
I agree. It’s absurd. Welcome to the world of American politics. PAC’s should be eliminated. In medicine, decades ago efforts were made to address the influence of big $ pharm companies that would routinely buy their way in to doctors’ prescribing practices by throwing money around – buying lunches, dinner parties, etc. The same reform needs happen in politics, because it’s the right thing to do, but I’m not holding my breath.
All of this came about by the people that you right wingers vote for.
Let’s vite to stop ALL political donations.
Make them all illegal.
Unions too
Then, let’s also ban any private money that wealthy candidates may spend to get elected, and from corporate sponsors.
But, the cons managed to get donations defined as free speech as part of their efforts to support grift.
To fascists, there’s no bigger crime than workers organizing.
Citizen, All good little commies and fascists hated unions. You hate the people. They tried forcefully killing unions in the 30’s. Backwards thinking like yours devastated this great country. It is what Hitler and Stalin did. Jump on board and let’s win one for the team. Republicans couldn’t manage a Dairy Queen let alone an entire country. You support a cesspool of hate and corruption.
Union political spending can be just as detrimental as corporate spending because both utilize massive financial aggregates to drown out the voice of the average, independent voter. Furthermore, just as corporate donations seek regulations that favor business profits over the public good, union financial backing can distort public policy—particularly when public sector unions fund the very politicians responsible for negotiating their taxpayer-funded contracts. Ultimately, regardless of whether the money originates from a corporate boardroom or a union hall, it transforms democratic elections into a contest of wealthy special interests rather than a reflection of the popular will.
Did you want to go back to the early industrial era when workers were losing limbs and dying in factories ?
Amazing. No grammar or spelling errors. You must have gone AI for that opinion piece.
Again, it’s Nazis who oppose unions. You didn’t just call for the end of union political spending, you called for making unions illegal, and not for the first time.
Critiquing the influence of big money in politics—whether it comes from corporations or unions—is not ‘opposing unions,’ and it certainly isn’t fascism. You completely fabricated a position I never took so you could use an extreme slur. If you can’t debate campaign finance honestly without resorting to hyperbole, we have nothing left to talk about.
Citizen, Re-reading your post I now see your point was to say that you believe political donations from unions illegal, and not make unions illegal themselves. My bad. My apologies.
Rhank you
You have openly advocated against unions many times. Now you’re paltering, but at least expressing a good idea for a change.
While I support the concept of labor unions and recognize the value they can bring, I believe they should compete on a level playing field based on performance, similar to the automotive sector. I oppose California’s policy of mandating project labor agreements (PLAs) for public works like affordable housing and the high-speed rail network, as these requirements exclude qualified non-union contractors and inflate taxpayer costs
Compared to private sector contract employees, union workers get more stable employment, living wages, plus better benefits and healthcare, which means higher tax revenues and less dependence on government funded social safety nets. They are a win/win.
Private sector, non-union contractors also employ skilled workers who deserve to compete for these projects. True efficiency comes when union and non-union shops compete on a level playing field based on the quality and cost of their work—similar to how they do in the automotive sector. When the government forces a monopoly, the taxpayer ultimately foots the bill, meaning a win for one specific group can result in a loss for the broader public infrastructure.”
But private sector non-union contractors are represented in the negotiations by a company that pays them reduced wages to get an advantage in the competitive bid, which is usually based on cost (as you are complaining about), basically screwing them over to profit the company, rather than the employees.
You forgot to leave out the quotation mark at the end your copied text, too. That explains the lack of typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors, but not the lack of thought.
I did misinterpret your ambiguous language, but you have previously made it clear that you hate unions, so you’re just being disingenuous.
“without resorting to hyperbole”
That is hilarious considering some of your previous commentary.
“we have nothing left to talk about.”
It’s fine by me if you stfu.
There is a big difference between opposing unions and opposing government labor monopolies on specific projects. But if you’d rather resort to personal attacks than discuss the actual policy, we can absolutely leave it here.