SACRAMENTO—Can there be such a thing as a progressive billionaire? Or, in the era of Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, is that a contradiction in terms?
Tom Steyer says the answer is “yes,” there are progressive billionaires, and he’s out to prove it as the next governor of California. That’s even though the Democratic establishment, playing it safe, doesn’t want him on the ticket this fall at all.
Steyer, the founder of the Farallon hedge fund, retired to both battle special interests and give his money away. He has emerged as one of the leading Democratic hopefuls in California’s June 2 “jungle primary.” There, right-wing Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Blanco and a boatload of Democrats—six of them serious—seek to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The top two finishers in the primary, regardless of party, will face each other in November, so the pundits, party pros, and financiers in the Golden State have been pushing trailing hopefuls, mostly progressives, out of the race. A sex scandal forced a leading “moderate,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, out of both the race and the U.S. House.
The pros fear the GOPers, both right-wing extremists, could split the 25% of the state primary electorate who are still Republicans right down the middle, and thus finish 1-2 in June, ahead of all the Democrats.
That prospect and the failure of two other progressives, former state Comptroller Betty Lee and former Rep. Katie Porter, to get off the ground, propelled Steyer to the forefront of the field, along with former state and Biden administration official Xavier Becerra, whom the pros view as the “safe” choice.
Which Californians do not want, Steyer told Our Revolution—the organization Bernie Sanders supporters founded–on May 4. Its California branch endorsed him after Lee dropped out. Lee had dropped out, too, and endorsed him before, explaining why to a May 3 Progressive Democrats of America Zoom meeting. She had run second at the prior state Democratic convention to Swalwell.
Lee said Steyer, and she are the closest philosophically. Porter’s still in the governor’s race. A fourth major player, “moderate” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who has taken corporate campaign cash, is also running.
Organized labor may be coming around, too. Steyer showed up at a May Day rally in East San Jose wearing a labor-supplied shirt reading “Workers Over Billionaires.” Next to him, in the same shirt, was Lorena Gonzalez, the president of the state AFL-CIO.
The race for the open governor’s chair in California is important for workers and for the nation as a whole. In sheer numbers, California has more union members than any other state, 2.489 million (14.9% of all workers) in 2025, federal calculations report, with another 300,000 represented by unions but not members.
And the state governor’s chair is also important as a “bully pulpit” and counterweight to the federal government in Washington, especially when that government is dysfunctional, anti-worker, and led by white nationalist and anti-labor Donald Trump. The governor’s policies have a big impact on the state’s economy, too. If California were a separate nation, it would tie Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy.
It’s also, he points out, an economy that leaves so many people so far behind that California is now tied with Louisiana for the highest poverty rate, over 14%, in the U.S.
And it’s policies that would shake up what he now calls a stodgy state administration under Newsom, where Steyer says he would have the most impact. They’re also policies the pros don’t like.
“My job is to try to listen to people, to have them tell me what issues and needs are,” he explained. Then he translates what they tell him, Steyer said, into policies that will help them.
And what they’re telling him is that the costs of health care, utilities, and housing are 1-2-3 on their minds, because all are becoming unaffordable.
Steyer’s solutions pleased his listeners at Our Revolution. Topping his list is government-run single-payer Medicare For All, a cause which National Nurses United has pushed for more than a decade.
The union, which is based in California, has had some success with it in the state legislature, but not enough to get it all the way through. NNU keeps pointing out how single-payer would actually cut individuals’ health care costs while increasing the quality of care, by eliminating the health insurance industry, which puts profits over people. That’s a key reason the union, which represents registered nurses, campaigns for single-payer.
“No one else who was running stood up and said they endorsed it,” Steyer said. The other leading Democrat, Becerra, mouths pro-single-payer words but, Steyer charged, sings a different tune to corporate executives behind closed doors.
‘We literally cannot afford NOT (his emphasis) to go to single-payer,” as insurers’ premiums and co-pays soar out the reach of Californians, Steyer said. “The health care system is eating us up.”
Steyer also promises to replace the entire state Public Utilities Commission, whose members the governor names. Newsom’s commissioners, he said, have granted the state’s utilities all the rate increases and other goodies they wanted. Those include reopening the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and accepting utilities’ excuses for the wildfires that ravaged the state.
“And Becerra, who’s been a politician for 35 years…just got a big contribution from Chevron. His support comes from the insiders and the special interests,” said Steyer. Meanwhile, “I’m proposing closing a corporate loophole that costs the state $20 billion. Nobody else has said that.” The money would go to ratepayers— consumers—and into California’s schools.
Steyer didn’t detail his stands on solving California’s affordable housing crisis. The median price of a single-family modest-sized home statewide is around $1 million, and Los Angeles leads the nation in the number of homeless people on its streets.
Lee told the Progressive Democrats of America on May 3 that Steyer has one other asset going for him besides progressive stands, refusal to take corporate campaign cash, and using his own on the campaign. Lee noted Steyer’s run for office, but he never held one. She, like Becerra, is a political veteran. But Becerra has a lot of campaign cash, while Lee relied on grass-roots workers, and it wasn’t enough.
“My pollster told me the voters were less concerned about experience and competence,” which she gained from her years as state Comptroller, Lee said. “That was our bread and butter.”
But in an echo of other successful Democratic hopefuls ever since the White House changed hands in January 2025, “They want a fighter against Trump,” she said.
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