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  • Race for California governor continues to heat up, with Trump critic Rep. Eric Swalwell jumping in

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    San Francisco Bay Area Democrat Eric Swalwell, a nettlesome foil and frequent target of President Trump and Republicans, on Thursday announced his bid for California governor.

    The congressman declared his bid during an appearance on the ABC late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, adding a little Hollywood flourish to a crowded, somewhat sleepy race filled with candidates looking for ways to catch fire in the 2026 election.

    Voter interest in the race remains relatively moribund, especially after two of California’s most prominent Democrats — former Vice President Kamala Harris and current U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla — opted to skip the race after months of speculation. About 44% of registered voters said in late October that they had not picked a preferred candidate to lead California, which is the most populous state in the union and has the fourth-largest economy in the world.

    The lack of a blockbuster candidate in the race, however, continues to entice others to jump in. Earlier this week, billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer announced his bid, and other well-known Democrats are exploring a possible run.

    Swalwell, a 45-year-old former Republican and former prosecutor who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2020, said his decision was driven by the serious problems facing California and the threats posed to the state and nation with Trump in the White House.

    “People are scared and prices are high, and I see the next governor of California having two jobs — one to keep the worst president ever out of our homes, streets and lives,” Swalwell said in an interview with The Times. “The second job is to bring what I call a new California, and that’s especially and most poignantly on housing and affordability in a state where we have the highest unemployment rate in the country, and the average age for a first-time homebuyer is 40 years old, and so we need to bring that down.”

    Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot run for reelection because of term limits, and he is currently weighing a 2028 presidential bid.

    None of the candidates in the race, including Swalwell, possess the statewide notoriety, success or fundraising prowess of California’s most recent governors: Newsom, California political icon Jerry Brown and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    “If you look at the past three governors, they’ve all had personalities,” said Jim DeBoo, Newsom’s former chief of staff, at a political conference at USC on Tuesday. “When you’re looking at the field right now, most people don’t know” much about the candidates in the crowded race despite their political bona fides.

    Nearly a dozen prominent Democrats and Republicans are running for governor next year, including: former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond; former Controller Betty Yee and conservative commentator Steve Hilton. And speculation continues to swirl about billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta possibly entering the race.

    On Thursday, Thurmond proposed a tax on the wealthy to fund education, healthcare, firefighting and construction. The proposal was seen in part as a subtle dig at Steyer and Caruso, both of whom have used their wealth to fund previous runs for office.

    “The naysayers say California’s ultra wealthy already pay enough, and that taxing billionaires will stifle innovation and force companies to leave our state,” he said in an online video. “I don’t buy it.”

    Steyer painted his decision to leave the hedge fund he created in California as an example of his desire to give back to the state’s residents in an ad that will begin airing on Friday.

    “It’s really goddamn simple. Tackle the cost-of-living crises or get the hell out of the way. Californians are the hardest-working people in the country. But the question is who’s getting the benefit of this,” he says in the ad, arguing that he took on corporations that refused to pay state taxes as well as oil and tobacco companies. “Let’s get down to brass tacks: It’s too expensive to live here.”

    Porter also went after Steyer, another sign that the intensity of the race is heating up as the June primary fast approaches.

    “A new billionaire in our race claims he’ll fight the very industries he got rich helping grow — fossil fuel companies, tobacco and private immigration detention facilities — at great cost to Californians,” she wrote on X on Wednesday.

    The former congresswoman was the subject of recent attacks from Democratic rivals in the governor’s race after videos emerged of her scolding a reporter and swearing at an aide. Yee said she should drop out of the race and Villaraigosa blistered her in ads.

    Villaraigosa also attacked Becerra for his connection to the scandal that rocked Sacramento last week, involving money from one of his campaign accounts being funneled to his former chief of staff while Becerra served in the Biden administration.

    “We don’t have a strong or robust opposition party in California, so you end up like seeing a lot of this action on the dance floor in the primary, obviously, between Democrats, which is going to be interesting,” said Elizabeth Ashford, who worked for Schwarzenegger, Brown and Harris and currently advises Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. “There’s obviously a lot of longtime relationships and longtime loyalties and interactions between these folks. And so what’s going to happen? Big question mark.”

    The ability to protect California from Trump’s policies and political vindictiveness and deal with the state’s affordability, housing and homelessness crisis will be pivotal to Swalwell’s potential path to the governor’s mansion. His choice to announce his decision on Kimmel’s show was telling — the host’s show was briefly suspended by Walt Disney-owned ABC under pressure from Trump after Kimmel made comments about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    Kimmel thanked Swalwell for his support during that period, which included the congressman handing out pro-Kimmel merchandise to his colleagues in Washington, D.C., before the two discussed the future of the state.

    “I love California, it’s the greatest country in the world. Country,” Swalwell said. “But that’s why it pisses me off to see Californians running through the fields where they work from ICE agents or troops in our streets. It’s horrifying. Cancer research being canceled. It’s awful to look at. And our state, this great state, needs a fighter and a protector, someone who will bring prices down, lift wages up.”

    There is a history of Californians announcing campaigns on late-night television. Schwarzenegger launched his 2003 gubernatorial bid on “The Tonight Show,” hosted by Jay Leno; Swalwell announced his unsuccessful presidential bid on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

    As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Swalwell said, he traveled to nearly 40 countries, and he would try to leverage the relationships he formed by creating an ambassador program to find global research money for California given the cuts the Trump administration has made to cancer research and other programs.

    The congressman is perhaps best known for criticizing Trump on cable news programs. But he’s faced ample attacks as well.

    In 2020, Swalwell came under scrutiny because of his association with Chinese spy Fang Fang, who raised money for his congressional campaign. He cut off ties with her in 2015 after intelligence officials briefed him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate the legislative body. He was not accused of impropriety.

    He is also being investigated by the Department of Justice over mortgage fraud allegations, which he dismissed as retribution for him being a full-throated critic of Trump.

    Swalwell served on the City Council of the East Bay city of Dublin before being elected to Congress in 2012 by defeating Rep. Pete Stark, a fellow Democrat.

    An Iowa native, Swalwell grew up in Dublin, which he said was “a town of low-income expectations” that was smeared as “Scrublin” at the time. He said that after graduating from law school, he served on the local planning commission that helped transform Dublin. The town increased housing, attracted Fortune 500 employers, exponentially improved the number of students going to college and leveraged developers to improve schools, resources for senior citizens, and police and fire services.

    “We have a Whole Foods, which no one can afford to shop at,” he said.

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    Seema Mehta

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  • Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer is running for governor

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    Billionaire hedge fund founder Tom Steyer announced Wednesday that he is running for governor of California, arguing that he is not beholden to special interests and can take on corporations that are making life unaffordable in the state.

    “The richest people in America think that they earned everything themselves. Bull—, man. That’s so ridiculous,” Steyer said in an online video announcing his campaign. “We have a broken government. It’s been bought by corporations and my question is: Who do you think is going to change that? Sacramento politicians are afraid to change up this system. I’m not. They’re going to hate this. Bring it on.”

    Steyer, 68, founded Farallon Capital Management, one of the nation’s largest hedge funds, and left it in 2012 after 26 years. Since his departure, he has become a global environmental activist and a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes.

    But the hedge firm’s investments — notably a giant coal mine in Australia that cleared 3,700 acres of koala habitat and a company that runs migrant detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — will make him susceptible to political attack by his gubernatorial rivals.

    Steyer has expressed regret for his involvement in such projects, saying it was why he left Farallon and started focusing his energy on fighting climate change.

    Tom Steyer, who ran for president in 2020, addresses a crowd during a primary election night party in Columbia, S.C.

    (Sean Rayford / Getty Images)

    Steyer previously flirted with running for governor and the U.S. Senate but decided against it, instead opting to run for president in 2020. He dropped out after spending nearly $342 million on his campaign, which gained little traction before he ended his run after the South Carolina primary.

    Next year’s gubernatorial race is in flux, after former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Alex Padilla decided not to run, and Proposition 50, the successful Democratic effort to redraw congressional districts, consumed all of the political oxygen during an off-year election.

    Most voters are undecided about who they would like to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run for reelection because of term limits, according to a poll released this month by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times. Steyer had the support of 1% of voters in the survey.

    In recent years, Steyer has been a longtime benefactor of progressive causes, most recently spending $12 million to support the redistricting ballot measure. But when he was the focus of one of the ads, rumors spiraled that he was considering a run for governor.

    In prior California ballot initiatives, Steyer successfully supported efforts to close a corporate tax loophole and to raise tobacco taxes, and fought oil-industry-backed efforts to roll back environmental law.

    His campaign platform is to build 1 million homes in four years, lower energy costs by ending monopolies, make preschool and community college free and ban corporate contributions to political action committees in California elections.

    Steyer’s brother Jim, the leader of Common Sense Media, and former Biden administration U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy are aiming to put an initiative on next year’s ballot to protect children from social media, specifically the chatbots that have been accused of prompting young people to kill themselves. Newsom recently vetoed a bill aimed at addressing this artificial intelligence issue.

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    Seema Mehta

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  • Billionaire Tom Steyer drops $12 million to support November redistricting ballot measure

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    As California voters receive mail ballots for the November special election, which could upend the state’s congressional boundaries and determine control of the House, billionaire hedge-fund founder Tom Steyer said Thursday he will spend $12 million to back Democrats’ efforts to redraw districts to boost their party’s ranks in the legislative body.

    The ballot measure was proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other California Democrats after President Trump urged Texas leaders to redraw their congressional districts before next year’s midterm election. Buttressing GOP numbers in Congress could help Trump continue enacting his agenda during his final two years in office.

    “We must stop Trump’s election-rigging power grab,” Steyer said in a statement. “The defining fight through Nov. 4 is passing Proposition 50. In order to compete and win, Democrats can’t keep playing by the same old rules. This is how we fight back, and stick it to Trump.”

    Steyer’s announcement makes him the biggest funder of pro-Proposition 50 efforts, surpassing billionaire financier George Soros, who has contributed $10 million to the effort.

    Steyer founded a hedge fund whose investments included massive fossil fuel projects, but after he learned of the environmental consequences of these financial decisions, he divested and has worked to fight climate change. Steyer has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic candidates and causes and more than $300 million on his unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign.

    Steyer plans to launch a scathing ad Thursday night that imagines Trump watching election returns on Nov. 4 and furiously throwing fast food at a television when he sees Proposition 50 succeeding.

    “Why did you do this to Trump?” the president asks. The ad then shows a fictional TV anchor saying that the ballot measure’s success makes it more likely that Trump will be investigated for corruption and that the records of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein will be released. “I hate California,” Trump responds.

    The advertisement is scheduled to start airing Thursday night during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The late-night show was in the spotlight after it was briefly suspended by Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC last month under pressure from the Trump administration because of a comment Kimmel made about the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    The esoteric process of redistricting typically occurs once every decade after the U.S. Census to account for population shifts. The maps, historically drawn in smoke-filled backrooms, protected incumbents and created bizarrely shaped districts, such as the “ribbon of shame” along the California coast.

    In recent decades, good-government advocates have fought to create districts that are logical and geographically compact and do not disenfranchise minority voters. At the forefront of the effort, California voters passed a 2010 ballot measure to create an independent commission to draw the state’s congressional boundaries.

    But this year, Trump and his allies urged leaders of GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts to boost Republicans’ prospects in next year’s midterm election. The House is closely divided, and retaining Republican control is crucial to Trump’s ability to enact his agenda.

    California Democrats, led by Newson, responded in kind. The state Legislature voted in August to call a special election in November to decide on redrawn districts that could give their party five more seats in the state’s 52-member congressional delegation, the largest in the nation.

    Supporters of Proposition 50 have vastly outraised the committees opposing the measure. Steyer’s announcement came one day after Charles Munger Jr., the largest donor to the opposition, spoke out publicly for the first time about why he had contributed $32 million to the effort.

    “I’m fighting for the ordinary voter to have an effective say in their own government,” Munger told reporters. “I don’t want Californians ignored by the national government because all the districts are fortresses for one party or the other.”

    A longtime opponent of gerrymandering, the bow-tie-wearing Palo Alto physicist bankrolled the 2010 ballot measure that created the independent commission to draw California’s congressional districts.

    Munger, the son of a billionaire who was the right-hand man of investor Warren Buffett, declined to comment about whether he planned to give additional funds.

    “I neither confirm nor deny rumors that involve the tactics of the campaign,” Munger told reporters. “Talk to me after the election is over.”

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    Seema Mehta

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