Politics
As primary election nears, top candidates for California governor debate tonight
SAN FRANCISCO — With the California governor’s race quickly approaching, six candidates will face off Wednesday evening in the first debate since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race in the aftermath of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.
The debate takes place at a critical moment in the turbulent contest to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. Ballots will start landing in Californians’ mailboxes in less than two weeks, and voters are split by a crowded field of eight prominent candidates. The debate also takes place after former state Controller Betty Yee ended her campaign because of a lack of resources and support in the polls.
Two Republicans — Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton — and four Democrats — billionaire Tom Steyer, former Biden administration Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan — will take the stage at Nexstar’s KRON4 studios in San Francisco. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, both Democrats, were not invited to participate because of their low polling numbers.
As the candidates strive to distinguish themselves in a crowded field, the debate could include fiery exchanges about the role of money in politics and potential heightened attacks on Becerra, who has surged in the polls since Swalwell dropped out. With the debate taking place on Earth Day, environmental issues are also likely to be raised.
The Wednesday night gathering is the first televised debate in the gubernatorial contest since early February. Last month, USC canceled a debate hours before it was set to begin over mounting criticism that its criteria excluded all major candidates of color.
The 7 p.m. debate is hosted by Nexstar and will be moderated by KTXL FOX40 anchor Nikki Laurenzo and KTLA anchor Frank Buckley. It can be viewed on KRON4 (San Francisco), KTLA5 (Los Angeles), KSWB/KUSI (San Diego), KTXL (Sacramento), KGET (Bakersfield) and KSEE (Fresno). NewsNation will also air the debate.
San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s run for California governor has been defined from the start by his donor list.
Mahan entered the race late and with little statewide name recognition, but catapulted into contention thanks to massive funding from billionaire tech titans, venture capitalists, cryptocurrency investors and other Silicon Valley elites. In a state with more than 23 million voters and hugely expensive media markets, the money signaled Mahan would be a contender.
It also spurred accusations from his more liberal Democratic competitors and powerful labor leaders that Mahan is beholden to Big Tech, including forces aligned with President Trump.
California Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher recently described Mahan as “funded by Trump’s big tech billionaires,” while fellow Democratic candidate Tom Steyer — a billionaire running against corporate interests — called him “MAGA Matt Mahan.”
That framing has persisted, despite Mahan being a centrist Democrat who has publicly criticized Trump.
On Thursday, Mahan released a four-page “Plan to Hold Big Tech Accountable and Ensure AI Works for All Californians.” The proposal called for AI and data centers to pay for their power and water needs, fund workforce stability initiatives and ensure human oversight of AI tools in critical sectors such as healthcare. It also called for the state to use AI to become more efficient, to bar cellphones in schools and to require parental consent for kids 15 and under joining social media.
In an interview with The Times, Mahan, 43, said AI is “one of the most significant trends in society” and needs to be addressed.
He also rejected the notion that he would do Big Tech’s bidding, and the idea that his support from tech leaders is entirely or even largely premised on his plans for their industry.
“I’ve spoken very little about tech with any of my donors,” he said.
Mahan said his fundraising has instead been “centered on how we get California on a better path in terms of building housing, improving the quality of our public schools, solving our biggest problems,” which “just resonates with people in the tech industry.”
A ‘digital native’
Mahan, the son of a teacher and a mailman, grew up in the farming community of Watsonville but commuted to San José to attend high school at Bellarmine College Prep on scholarship as a low-income student. He went on to Harvard University, where he was student body president and classmates with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, spent a year in Bolivia building irrigation systems, and then taught for two years in Alum Rock as part of the Teach for America program.
He then joined Causes, an early Facebook application that allowed nonprofits to build grassroots support online, and rose to become chief executive. In 2014, he co-founded Brigade, a nonpartisan platform where voters could advocate for issues, which was acquired in 2019. He won a San José City Council seat in 2020, and was elected mayor in 2022.
An early mayoral profile described Mahan as painting a whiteboard behind his desk to “write on the wall as I did in my tech days.” Another noted he used ChatGPT to write speeches. A third recounted how he’d used AI to make city buses run faster.
Mahan said he learned as a startup leader and a classroom teacher that metrics matter — that “when we take our precious tax dollars and invest them in public services, we should measure our performance.”
He said he has always believed government should take the best tech has to offer while being vigilant about the risks it poses, which maybe comes naturally to him as a millennial who remembers “the world before the internet” but is also something of a “digital native.”
Donors explain
Between Jan. 1 and April 18, Mahan’s campaign raised nearly $13.5 million, according to state campaign finance filings. During the same period, an independent expenditure backing Mahan called Back to Basics raised about $22.7 million, while another launched by the group Deliver for California raised nearly $3.3 million.
The donors are a who’s who of tech leaders, venture capitalists and other leaders in the gig, gaming, digital media and AI defense fields.
Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, gave the maximum individual contribution of $39,200 to Mahan directly, and $1 million to the Deliver for California committee. Reed Hastings, the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, gave the maximum contribution to Mahan, plus $1 million to the Back to Basics committee.
Some donors, such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who gave the maximum to Mahan, are well-known supporters of progressive causes. Others, such as Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and crypto founder David Marcus, who maxed out to Mahan, are also Trump backers.
Brin, a friend of Gov. Gavin Newsom since the Democrat was mayor of San Francisco, has been moving rightward recently. He has donated to the Republican National Committee and in March was appointed to the White House tech advisory council. He’s also a major donor to the nonprofit opposing the ballot measure for a new tax on California billionaires — which Mahan also is against.
Brin, Lonsdale and Marcus did not respond to a request for comment. Hastings and Hoffman declined to comment.
Several other tech donors did speak with The Times — and universally described their support for Mahan as less to do with his tech policies, and more to do with issues important to all Californians.
Jamie Siminoff, who sold his home security startup Ring to Amazon for $1 billion and gave the maximum donation to Mahan, said he thinks L.A., where he lives, is the “greatest city in the world” and California is the “best state in the world.” But he sees Mahan as someone who could make improvements by bringing the state toward the political middle on public safety, housing and homelessness.
“He’s just like a nice, pragmatic, sort of centrist person, from what I can see, [who] wants to make California better, and I’m 100% behind that.”
Siminoff said it doesn’t hurt that Mahan speaks the same language as many tech leaders, who are mostly just “pragmatic inventors and entrepreneurs” who want California’s leader to be “principled in thinking about fixing things.”
Ruchi Sanghvi, the first female engineer at Facebook and a former Dropbox executive who state records show donated $25,000 to Mahan, said she has known Mahan since he was leading Causes but fell out of touch. When he entered the governor’s race, and she “got all these emails from people that I respect” saying they were supporting him, she asked for a meeting.
At that meeting, she said, Mahan “really dug in on some of the core issues that I care about,” including housing, homelessness and education.
The San Francisco resident, political independent and mother of three said the idea that tech leaders are backing Mahan because they believe he will scratch their back in business is wrong. Referring to his tech plan’s restrictions on social media for youth, she said, “I don’t think of that as scratching my back.”
Instead, “what really resonates with me and my peers is that, yes, he is pragmatic,” Sanghvi said. “He cares about measurable outcomes, which I think is very critical.”
Marc Merrill, co-founder, co-chairman and chief product officer of L.A.-based video game developer and e-sports company Riot Games, gave the maximum to Mahan, as did his wife, Ashley, founder of the sleepwear brand Lunya. In a statement to The Times, Merrill said he and his wife are lifelong Californians who love the state and support Mahan because of his record “addressing California’s most pressing challenges with practical, results-oriented solutions” in San José.
Merrill said Mahan brought down violent crime, reduced homelessness with “data-driven programs that address root causes rather than just managing the problem,” and “fostered an environment where businesses are choosing to invest and grow in the city.”
Tech vs. labor?
Gonzalez Fletcher said tech leaders have long “been very clear about their desire to support candidates who won’t regulate AI, to support candidates who will go after organized labor” — and their support for Mahan is no different.
She pointed as an example to a March event attended by Mahan and hosted by one of his most vocal backers: Garry Tan, a venture capitalist and chief executive of Y Combinator, a startup incubator in San Francisco.
At the event — which was part of Tan’s launch of a new statewide group called Garry’s List, which he has described as a “Rotary Club for radical centrism” — Chris Larsen, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency network Ripple, railed against the influence of unions in California politics and the “weak” response from business leaders, according to video.
“We’ve got to fight on par with the unions when they’re proposing stupid, job-killing ideas like the San Francisco CEO tax,” Larsen said. He noted that several other candidates for governor, including former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, whom he’d donated to, had backed the measure to tax companies that pay their chief executive 100 times more than their average employee.
Neither Tan nor Larsen responded to a request for comment.
Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state legislator, said the argument that California Democrats have caused the state’s biggest problems by bowing to unions is false, and that what is more true is that “ruling class” Democrats such as Newsom “acquiesce to business interests” driving the state’s affordability and homelessness crises.
She said employers get away with underpaying workers and big landlords are allowed to take advantage of renters. She said Airbnb, as a tech example, has gone unchecked despite causing “a lot of the removal of housing stock.”
She said one reason she opposes Mahan is that he “suffers from the same love affair with Big Tech” as Newsom.
Steyer — who has funded his own campaign to the tune of nearly $200 million — has repeatedly struck a similar note.
Earlier this month, his campaign wrote that “Mahan continues to fail working Californians by catering to tech billionaires and wealthy special interest groups.” In February, it wrote that although Mahan had the support of “powerful special interests hellbent on keeping California a playground for the rich,” Steyer had the backing of “bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and custodians.”
Airbnb declined to comment but in the past has denied claims its platform substantially contributes to housing affordability issues, and has donated to housing initiatives. Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk, a Mahan donor, did not respond to a request for comment.
Mahan said he values unions, in part because he grew up in a union household and benefited from the high-quality healthcare that provided, included when he was hospitalized for a collapsed lung as a teenager.
He said he has also worked with tech employers who “are inventing the future, quite literally,” and “creating a lot of jobs and opportunity.”
Mahan said the idea the two are inherently at odds is false, because “business needs labor, and labor needs business,” and the real question is “how to balance everyone’s needs.”
“If we don’t have a strong enough regulatory environment, and business has too much power, workers can be exploited, the environment can be exploited and we can see really negative social outcomes,” he said. “But the flip side is also true. If labor in our politics has too much power, you can also see distortions, you can see investment flow elsewhere, you can see less housing get built.”
Mahan said that “neither side has a monopoly on the truth,” and that government has to “bring people together and strike the right balance.”
He also defended Airbnb, which in San José pays taxes just like hotels, he said.
“We don’t see Airbnb as an antagonistic thing. We don’t let them take over the market, we regulate them, we charge them, and we use their tax revenue to provide services to people.”
He said the state’s housing crisis is due to over-regulation slowing new building to the point where it cannot keep up with job growth — which he called “fundamentally unsustainable and unfair” to low-income folks pushed out of job centers as a result.
The answer is building more homes, more quickly, he said, including by reducing building fees and streamlining permitting processes — which he said he has done in San José and would replicate statewide as governor.
“I am, first and foremost, focused on making government deliver results that make a real difference in people’s lives,” he said. “That’s my North Star.”
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election in November, but fewer than a tenth of those races are likely to be competitive. And that number has been dwindling.
One culprit? The nationwide redistricting battles, in which Republicans and Democrats across the country have resorted to creative cartography to draw as many safe seats as possible as they fight for control of Congress.
Based on 2024 presidential vote margin
Competitive districts lost with recent redistricting
Competitive districts — where a candidate leads a challenger by fewer than 10 percentage points — are increasingly rare. That is partly because many voters choose to live in communities with like-minded people, making many areas more politically homogenous and less competitive. And it is partly because parties are able to draw gerrymandered House maps, whittling down the number of swing districts even further.
“It’s a mutually reinforcing process,” said Eric Schickler, a political science professor at U.C. Berkeley.
Presidential candidates won about 28 percent of congressional districts with fewer than 10 percentage points in 2008. In 2024, that decreased to 20 percent.
Four swing districts vanished after Florida’s latest round of redistricting in April. Republicans redrew the state’s congressional maps. The new map retained only one district that would have been considered competitive in the 2024 presidential election.
Nearly 20 years ago, Florida had 14 competitive districts.
Florida
2024 presidential vote margin
2024 districts: 5 competitive
New districts: 1 competitive
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump
+10–20
+20 or more Trump
Texas’ new maps shifted seats in favor of Republicans and in the process wiped out the only two districts that would have been considered competitive in 2024.
2024 presidential vote margin
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump
+10–20 +20 or more Trump
Texas
2024 districts: 2 competitive
New districts: 0 competitive
Democrats have taken a similar route. Three swing districts disappeared in California when lawmakers redrew its map so Democrats could pick up seats.
2024 presidential vote margin
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris Less than +10 Trump
+10–20
+20 or more Trump
California
2024 districts: 14 competitive
New districts: 11 competitive
Using presidential election results to analyze House races is far from a perfect forecast for the 2026 midterms. For one, voters don’t always cast ballots along party lines. And while voters overwhelmingly turned out for Republican candidates in 2024, the political environment in this year’s midterms is expected to favor Democrats.
But presidential results are a useful lens because of their high turnout and ability to offer a clearer view of partisan trends than congressional elections, which can be highly influenced by incumbency.
The lack of competition is bad for democracy, experts say. Voters have less of a reason to participate if races are not close, and they have fewer ways to force out leaders with whom they are unhappy.
“If you do away with competitive seats, you’re just going to get much less of a response when voters are dissatisfied,” Mr. Shickler said.
House members who occupy safe seats have fewer incentives to compromise or work across the aisle. Many can win by appealing to their party’s base, who are often more likely to vote in primaries.
That increases polarization and can lead to gridlock in Congress, according to experts. “We see that pretty well in our politics already,” said Asher Hildebrand, a professor of public policy at Duke University. “And we’re only going to see more of that as swing districts disappear.”
Mr. Hildebrand points to his home state of North Carolina, which went through two rounds of mid-decade redistricting within two years. Its legislature passed new maps in 2023 that left just two competitive districts. The latest map passed in October shifts one of those districts, currently represented by Don Davis, a Democrat, from one which Mr. Trump won by three percentage points in 2024 to one that he would have won by 12.
2024 presidential vote margin
+20 or more Harris
+10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump +10–20
+20 or more Trump
North Carolina
2024 districts: 2 competitive
New districts: 1 competitive
About half of voters in North Carolina voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. But only about a quarter of the state’s delegates are Democrats.
After the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, and with encouragement from the Trump administration, Republicans in several Southern states — Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina — have moved quickly to redraw maps in their favor. Democrats have threatened to do the same in blue states.
Use the dropdown below to explore how districts’ 2024 presidential election results have shifted in each state that has passed new maps.
+20 or more Harris +10–20
Less than +10 Harris
Less than +10 Trump
+10–20
+20 or more Trump
Note: A court has not yet approved Alabama’s use of a new map.
2024 districts: 1 competitive
New districts: 0 competitive
Politics
Dem who welcomed socialist mayor’s ‘change’ now sounding alarm over billionaire exodus: ‘Gravely concerned’
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A Democratic city council member who once welcomed the “change” from socialist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is now admitting he is “gravely concerned” about the business exodus affecting the major American city.
This comes as blue states like Washington and New York face a business exodus in favor of more market-friendly red states. Starbucks, a major player in Seattle’s business scene, recently announced a major expansion into Nashville while simultaneously cutting Seattle-based corporate jobs, a move that has intensified concerns about Seattle’s business climate and economic competitiveness.
Wilson, a self-proclaimed socialist, recently went viral for laughing off the exodus of billionaires and business leaders from her city, saying, “I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are super overblown,” and adding, “the ones that leave? Like, bye.”
Now, less than five months into Wilson’s term, Seattle Democratic Councilmember Rob Saka admitted to the New York Times, “I am gravely concerned,” telling the outlet, “This is real.”
BISHOP BARRON SLAMS ‘BORDERLINE COMMUNISTS’ SANDERS, MAMDANI AHEAD OF TRUMP PRAYER EVENT: ‘ECONOMY THAT KILLS’
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson declared last year at a barista picket line, “I am not buying Starbucks, and you should not either.’” (David Ryder/Reuters)
Saka previously welcomed Wilson after she defeated incumbent Bruce Harrell, saying in a statement, “The voters have spoken, calling for change and a renewed focus on affordability, community, and fighting back against a resurgent Trump agenda.”
He praised the “energy she brings to leadership,” and said he was “look[ing] forward to partnering with her to build a thriving, inclusive Seattle that uplifts working families, expands universal preschool for all, ends food deserts, and creates safer, more connected neighborhoods across our city.”
Starbucks recently announced it will shift 2,000 corporate jobs, primarily in IT and supply chain management, to a new regional headquarters in Nashville. Last week, KOMO News reported Starbucks laid off an additional 61 employees as part of a reorganization of its technology department at its corporate headquarters.
State leaders in Washington have also faced criticism for recently passing the “millionaires tax,” which Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson signed on March 30. The measure has been described as the state’s first-ever income tax, backed by progressives and socialists and opposed by conservatives.
The new tax will impose a 9.9% income tax on households earning more than $1 million each year.
WHY STARBUCKS PICKED NASHVILLE OVER SEATTLE FOR EXPANSION, ACCORDING TO LOCAL BUSINESS REPORTER
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said the Seattle Police Department will be required to investigate, verify, and document any reports of immigration enforcement activity. (Katie Wilson for Seattle)
Starbucks is not the only business impacted by the state’s economic policies. The Columbia Tower Club, an iconic business club atop Seattle’s tallest skyscraper, closed last month after more than four decades. Long considered a hub for executives, developers and civic leaders, the club cited declining office traffic and downtown business activity tied to remote work and high vacancy rates. Critics quickly pointed to the closure as another sign of weakening business confidence in Seattle.
On Monday, the Washington State Republican Party ripped into both Wilson and the city council, posting on X, “Marxist @MayorofSeattle Katie Wilson is more concerned about toilet ribbon-cutting photo opps than massive capital flight in downtown #Seattle all the while @SeattleCouncil stands idle as a once iconic city crumbles.”
The jab refers to a recent Wilson event promoting new downtown public restrooms, which critics mocked amid concerns about Seattle’s economy and business climate.
Though Wilson’s now-infamous “like, bye” line drew laughs and applause from her audience, it immediately sparked backlash on social media from conservatives criticizing her economic policy.
“Seattle’s Socialist Mayor responds to exodus of wealth from Washington State by saying ‘BYE’… then laughing. We’re doomed,” wrote Brandi Kruse.
SOCIALIST MAYOR’S BLUNT 1-WORD MESSAGE TO FLEEING MILLIONAIRES SPARKS OUTRAGE: ‘WE’RE DOOMED’
The Space Needle stands over the Seattle skyline with Mt. Rainier visible in the background in Seattle, Wash., on March 13, 2022. The observation tower was built in 1962 for the World’s Fair and remains a popular tourist attraction despite recent challenges with homelessness and crime in the city. (John Moore/Getty Images)
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“This clip will live in infamy,” the Washington State Republican Party posted on X. “@MayorofSeattle Katie Wilson is not only unfit to be mayor, she lacks grace and gratitude. Perhaps, she’s the one who should leave #Seattle.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Saka and Wilson for additional comment.
Fox News Digital’s Rachel del Guidice, Joshua Q. Nelson and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
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