California’s primary election delivered a split verdict for the tech industry’s political ambitions Tuesday, as voters rejected San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s gubernatorial bid — a candidate who amassed roughly $50 million largely from tech donors — while advancing a slate of industry-backed candidates for the state legislature and other offices.
Mahan, a Democrat and frequent critic of Gov. Gavin Newsom who entered the governor’s race in January, conceded Tuesday night after early returns showed him with about 4% of the vote. His campaign drew substantial financial support from former and current executives at Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, DoorDash, Palantir and other firms, according to public records.
Despite that loss, State Sen. Scott Wiener, the tech industry’s preferred candidate to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Nancy Pelosi, led the field in the Senate primary and will advance to the November general election. State Sen. Ben Allen, the industry’s choice for insurance commissioner, also appeared positioned to advance as vote counting continued.
The most consistent returns came in lower-profile state legislative races, where two Super PACs funded by tech money saw most of their endorsed candidates advance. Grow California, which has reported a combined $20 million from cryptocurrency moguls Chris Larsen and Tim Draper, contributed millions to six local races and spent to oppose five candidates, according to public records. California Leads, a Super PAC funded with a combined $10 million from Google and Meta, spent millions supporting eight local Assembly and Senate candidates.
Mark Pulido, a Democrat running for state Assembly in an Orange County district who received about $2.25 million from the two Super PACs, advanced to a runoff against his Republican opponent in November. With the exception of one candidate, all races backed by Grow California and California Leads advanced to the general election ballot, according to public records.
Both Super PACs have stated their goals publicly. Grow California describes its mission as to “rebuild a state capital.” California Leads writes on its website: “Our work is grounded in a simple idea: who serves in the State Legislature matters.”
The two Super PACs appeared to have focused primarily on Democratic districts, supporting favored Democrats in primaries to displace less favorable candidates from the ticket.
Election observers said Tuesday’s spending was likely a preview of a much larger financial push ahead of November. Francesco Trebbi, a public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told the Guardian: “It was just like a drop in the bucket of what’s going to happen.” He predicted that by September, “you’ll probably see records being broken for midterm campaign spending. It’s going to be exponential.”
The spending is expected to intensify as California’s proposed one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires moves toward a vote in November. Tech billionaires have already spent millions opposing the ballot measure.
Grow California declined to comment and California Leads did not respond to a request for comment.