Tales of a Billionaire-Populist Wannabe Governor

Tom Steyer has hired Zohran Mamdani’s ad firm to help get him elected in California. Can they pull it off?

(Composite / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

LONGTIME DEMOCRATIC DONOR TOM STEYER has worn so many hats in his life—businessman, environmentalist, presidential candidate—that you’d think at the tender age of 68 he would be steely, hardened by the challenges and opportunities the world has thrown at him.

And yet, as he sat on the other side of a FaceTime conversation with me this week, the man who is now running to be governor of California started—I swear to you—crying. Not the type of tears that careen down the lines of one’s face. But the swelling-of-the-eyes variety; the kind that makes the voice quiver but not stumble.

Steyer was talking about his belief in the promise of California, a promise all too often belied by corporations that have come to the state and taken advantage of regular folks. “The working people, the poor people, and the illiterate people of this country have built this system at the risk of their lives,” he said, just as the water works started up. The phone he was holding got a bit wobbly (making me, the interviewer, slightly queasy as his camera jerked around), and his voice approached a whisper. I got the sense that he was working hard to hold back bigger sobs.

“Truthfully, it’s like, I think I’m just a lucky guy in many ways,” he explained when I asked why he was getting so emotional.

The moment felt genuine. But I’m not a resident of California. And the success or failure of Steyer’s candidacy will depend, to a large degree, on whether voters there believe that these sentiments come from a sincere place. Though he is a legitimate crier (at least according to him), this could prove a hard sell. That’s because the public perception of Steyer is that he’s a prominent member of the elite Democratic donor class. A former hedge-fund manager, he has hosted presidents at his house in San Francisco’s wealthy Sea Cliff neighborhood, which overlooks the ocean and has a stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge. He owns an 1,800-acre cattle ranch on the California coast and a house on Lake Tahoe, where President Joe Biden and the first family stayed during a vacation in 2023. Forbes estimates his net worth at a cool $2 billion.

At a time when the Democratic party is leaning into a populist political message, that’s not exactly the ideal profile. Yet in November, Steyer announced his campaign in a two-minute video slamming “monopolistic” utility companies and the “richest people in America” who “think that they earned everything themselves.” (“Bullshit, man!”) He vowed to make “corporations pay their fair share again” and pitched himself as an outsider candidate who would get money out of politics and deliver real results. When I asked him whether his own life and wealth could complicate this message—and, frankly, whether he thinks billionaires like him should exist—he had a ready response.

“I don’t believe in putting a ceiling on people’s ambitions,” Steyer said. “But let me say this, too: This is an amazing place to come—as I say, best place to start a business, best place to grow a business. But if you come here, you’re part of a community, you’re part of a state, you’re part of something that has been built by working people for decades. . . . Sky’s the limit, but I am absolutely committed to protecting the interest of working Californians from people who want to rip us off.”

Over the decades, plenty of rich Democrats have convinced skeptical voters to look beyond the tensions that exist between their personal wealth and their personal brand as an authentic outsider populist. (Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes quickly to mind.) Steyer thinks he can do the same.

While he is not favored to advance beyond the June primary, California’s nonpartisan “jungle primary” system—in which the top two candidates regardless of party affiliation advance—is unpredictable. That’s especially true this election cycle. At least ten candidates have announced gubernatorial bids so far, and there’s not a clear Democratic frontrunner. By and large, candidates have struggled to raise the money needed to run a competitive statewide race. Steyer’s wealth, at least on this front, creates an obvious advantage. Unlike the others, he can bankroll his own race.

“If it really only takes 14 percent to win the primary, who knows what the results are going to be,” said Alan Minsky, the Los Angeles-based executive director of Progressive Democrats of America. “Nobody’s really captured the public imagination.”

To help make his case that a billionaire can be a populist, too, Steyer has done what any entrepreneurial businessman would do: He’s gone and enlisted the consultants who have had the most recent success in this field.

One of the main groups working on Steyer’s campaign is Fight Agency, which was founded by Democratic strategists who worked on Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and John Fetterman’s and Ruben Gallego’s successful Senate bids. The group has been behind some of the buzziest campaigns on the progressive left. Most recently, they worked on Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, and they backed Graham Platner’s Democratic primary bid in the Maine Senate race.

A billionaire ex-hedge fund manager is not the usual roster piece for a consultancy best known for getting a democratic socialist elected to the most important mayoralship in the country. And Steyer told me that when his team first reached out to Rebecca Katz, one of the Fight Agency partners, she said, “No.”

But Katz, in an interview, said that Steyer won her over.

“When we started Fight, our goal was to get more working-class candidates elected. He is not from the working class. I underestimated him, and I didn’t think he got it,” Katz recalled. She ended up getting on a Zoom call with Steyer to hear his pitch (unclear if tears were shed), and she ended up convinced that he was “as clear-eyed on the problems and challenges we have in America—and California in particular—[as] anyone out there.”

“Is he similar to some of our other clients? No, he is not. But does he understand the problem, and does he have real solutions? One hundred fucking percent,” she said.

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THE RESULTS ARE ALREADY becoming apparent. When Steyer ran for president in 2020, the prevailing sentiment was that his campaign was a vanity project built on gimmicks. He became something of an internet meme after dancing onstage to “Back That Thang Up” with Juvenile during the South Carolina primary. (Truly, it was one of the greatest moments of the primary.)

“That was really about trying to change the conversation,” Steyer told me. “This is really different because I’m running to win. And I really feel like it’s a completely different orientation.”

For this go-around, Steyer has carefully focused his messaging on economic issues. In a new ad that his campaign gave me an early look at, Steyer promises to address California’s housing crisis by building one million new homes, cutting permitting costs, and stopping Wall Street from “buying up middle-class homes.” He still has some gimmicks, but even those are being put in the service of a populist message. His campaign released a new ad last week parodying Love Actually with Steyer holding up signs about how “utility rates are too high,” “corporate PAC money is out of control,” and “people can’t afford to live here.”

Already, he has won over some members of his party. California Rep. Ro Khanna endorsed Steyer last month, saying that he would bring a “bold, progressive agenda” to Sacramento.

Steyer’s campaign will inevitably receive its fair share of eyerolls—as will Fight Agency’s involvement in it.

“I’m confused by Dem socialists supporting Steyer in the California governor’s race,” tweeted Shannon Watts, a gun-control advocate and the founder of Moms Demand Action. “Billionaires are either the root of all evil or the preferred candidate out of a roster of 10. But they can’t be both. Seems like an empty talking point.”

But Steyer’s fans and supporters believe he has a profoundly strong résumé that he can easily sell to the state’s Democratic-minded voters. After leaving his hedge fund in 2012, he gave millions of dollars to Democratic causes, fought against the fossil fuel and tobacco industries, helped fund ballot initiatives advancing environmental goals, founded the political advocacy group NextGen Climate, and led the “Need to Impeach” campaign during Donald Trump’s first term. Most recently, he spent millions of dollars on ads backing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting ballot measure—although that irked some Democratic officials who felt like Steyer was trying to steal the spotlight ahead of his gubernatorial bid.

Again, the big question for the viability of Steyer’s campaign is whether people believe he is sincere about his pitch, or take him to be just another rich Democrat with a political itch. At a time when Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s profile is also rising ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run, Steyer is forcing the question of what role billionaires ought to play in the party—and whether Democrats have prioritized Carhartt-wearing candidates who can cosplay as working class over more viable candidates who are genuinely trusted on economic issues.

After all, Donald Trump, a gauche billionaire, has been elected president twice in large part because voters trusted him on the economy. And as Steyer sees it—borrowing a line that Trump himself has used—his wealth could even come to be viewed as a virtue.

“I have no conflicts. I don’t owe anybody anything. I’m not going to owe anybody anything. And that’s why I can take on the big interests,” he said.

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🫏 Donkey Business:

— Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s candidacy for U.S. Senate has gotten off to a rocky start. At the end of last week, clips began circulating of an April speech Crockett gave at Grace Baptist Church’s 125th anniversary, during which she suggested that immigrants are necessary because “ain’t none of y’all trying to go and farm right now. . . . We done picking cotton.”

In a statement to James Barragán, an Austin-based news anchor, Crockett said her point was “to highlight the shared struggle between Black and Brown communities. . . . I will always be open to learning when my words miss the mark.” But it’s not a great look for Crockett, who was already facing scrutiny for telling Vanity Fair in an interview last year that Hispanic voters who supported Donald Trump had a “slave mentality” when it comes to their positions on immigration. Hispanic Texans, who make up over 40 percent of the state’s population, are a critical voting bloc.

James Talarico’s campaign appears to have sensed an opportunity. On Thursday, Talarico will cohost a rally in the Rio Grande Valley with Bobby Pulido, a Tejano singer running for Congress. (If you are unfamiliar with Pulido, check out this piece that my Bulwark colleague Adrian Carrasquillo wrote about him.)

Talarico also received praise from party strategists for how he spoke about immigration during an appearance on Jubilee’s “Surrounded,” particularly as the national party is desperately trying to find ways to effectively talk about the issue.

“The more I travel the state, the more I’ve realized that most Texans are in the same spot on this issue. The metaphor I’ve used is that our southern border should be like our front porch: There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door,” Talarico said. “I will say what I think not enough Democrats have been willing to say: Joe Biden failed us on our southern border.”

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My open tabs:

— Paul Finebaum’s road not taken

— The underrated factors limiting the power of a blue wave next year

— How the Phone Ban Saved High School

— Blamed for the nation’s historic measles outbreak, West Texas Mennonites have hardened their views on vaccines