Tom Steyer’s campaign for California governor is spending money at a feverish pace, and the only prescription appears to be another fat sack of cash.
New campaign filings show Steyer — a former hedge fund capitalist turned lefty environmentalist and major Democratic donor — gave his campaign another $28.5 million this month, bringing his personal stake in the race to $66.7 million.
Steyer gave $9.3 million to his campaign in January after throwing down $28 million last year to get the party started with an avalanche of campaign ads.
The outrageous surge in spending — Steyer is on pace to smash Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign spending record of $144 million if he emerges out of the primary — has coincided with polling that has markedly improved in the months since he launched his campaign in November.
By comparison, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s campaign spent $46.8 million in 2018 during his first victorious race for governor, according to the Secretary of State’s website. Winning a second term in 2022 cost Newsom’s campaign just $21.6 million.
Despite the stilted framing, Steyer’s mantra of being “the billionaire who will fight billionaires” appears to be working.
A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California had Steyer garnering 10% support — just behind Democrats such as former congresswoman Katie Porter (13%) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (11%). Porter finished second in Democratic fundraising last year with $6 million, while Swalwell — supported by a coterie of Hollywood A-listers — hauled in $3.1 million.
“Tom Steyer is not f—ing around,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a Democratic political consultant. “He has shown up a long time consistently for progressive causes.
“He’s bringing a gun to a knife fight.”
Ashford noted that Steyer’s support of the proposed billionaires’ tax helps barricade him from attacks on being part of the wealthy elite that take more than they give back to California.
“Unlike billionaires who have only gotten activated by a threat of a tax, he’s been in the mix for a long time and he understands that kind of wealth has to give black,” Ashford said. “He’s kind of doing the thing that people think billionaires should do, which is try to help.”
Operatives who worked on Zohran Mamdani’s stunning campaign for New York City mayor have helped Steyer hone his messaging, which consistently goes back to affordability.
“Tom Steyer has two things going for him: one is all this money to buy attention,” said Jim Ross, a state political consultant who’s not working on the governor;’s race. “And the second is he’s the only one talking about the issues, getting the billionaires to pay their fair share and the environment.”
However, Steyer is far from a frontrunner at this point and his candidacy could actually hurt Democrats’ hopes of getting at least one candidate out of the nonpartisan, top-two primary format in June’s election.
Dems were panicking in San Francisco last weekend as polling has shown former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco are at or near the top of an absurdly crowded field.
If some lower-polling Dem candidates don’t drop out of the race before the filing deadline on March 6, the party runs the real risk of allowing two Republicans to advance to the general election — a doomsday scenario for Democrats beyond what could be another pressing issue.
“I don’t even know what the Democratic Party even stands for anymore,” a state political consultant who works with Democrats told The Post on the condition of anonymity. “We’re not talking to voters about the things that matter to their lives.”
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Ross suggested the race is still in flux this early in the calendar, as candidates like San Jose Mayor Matt Mahn and a well-funded committee supporting him are expected to unleash millions in ad spending in the weeks and months to come.
“We have a long way to go before the election,” Ross said. “Most voters might not even know [the race] is happening.”
But he added that Steyer’s focus on the billionaires tax, the environment and the cost of utility bills is a line of attack that is more focused than Swalwell and Porter’s campaigns.
“With the amount of money and resources he’s pumping into his camping,” Ross said, “he could really move in the months to come.”
