Tom Steyer, a Democratic billionaire running in the crowded California governor\u2019s race, pitched himself as a stalwart progressive in a Sacramento town hall on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Steyer vowed to institute single-payer health care, boost education spending, slash utility costs and remove Proposition 13 protections from commercial and industrial properties to a crowd of roughly 200 people at The Cannery in East Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Time and again, the former financier cast himself as the champion of \u201cworking people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can show the Trump administration, we can show the world: this is what the 21st century is supposed to look like,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that definitely means leaving nobody on the side of the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire running for governor, speaks during a campaign stop in Sacramento on Thursday. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com <\/p>\n
In a Public Policy Institute of California poll released last week<\/a>, 10% of likely voters selected Steyer as their top choice for governor, effectively tying with two Democrats \u2014 former Rep. Katie Porter and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin \u2014 and two Republicans, Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. The top two candidates, regardless of party, will advance from California\u2019s June 2 primary election.<\/p>\n This is Steyer\u2019s second attempt at higher office. He ran in the 2020 Democratic primary as a climate change activist, spending more than $191 million on a bid that failed to net him any delegates<\/a>.<\/p>\n He told the crowd in Sacramento that his latest bid was motivated by his desire to give back to a state that helped launch his success.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to have a meaningful life,\u201d Steyer said. \u201cI want to stand with the people of this state and have actual prosperity. Twelve trillionaires and 40 million people who can\u2019t make rent is not success.\u201d<\/p>\n Steyer spent most of the Sacramento appearance answering audience questions on everything from taxes to utility monopolies.<\/p>\n Several questioners pressed Steyer on his positions on Israel\u2019s actions in Palestine and asked him to work to divest state entities from Israeli companies. The event was briefly interrupted by two protestors who urged Steyer to refer to Israel\u2019s actions in Palestine as a genocide.<\/p>\n The Democrat said that what he\u2019d seen in Gaza was \u201cincredibly distressing, sad, and wrong\u201d and said there\u2019d been \u201ccriminal behavior,\u201d but stopped short of calling it a genocide.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going right now to find out what\u2019s going on in Gaza now and trying to determine exactly what\u2019s true because if you\u2019re going to go to an extreme place in terms of condemnation, you have to make sure you\u2019re right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Another audience member, Gina Coates, said she liked what she\u2019d seen of his ads but noted he was a wealthy white man making big promises. \u201cHow do I trust what you\u2019re telling me is true?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n Steyer said his decision to step away from his business had been unwise from a financial perspective but argued that \u201cthis is where my heart is,\u201d and pledged to give away most of his wealth.<\/p>\n In an interview after the event, Coates, a retired civil servant who described herself as a person of color who\u2019d become increasingly disillusioned with politics, said Steyer\u2019s answers had left her \u201csomewhat satisfied\u201d but said she still wanted to do more research.<\/p>\n But the skeptics seemed far outnumbered by Steyer enthusiasts like Rob Kneen, an El Dorado Hills resident who liked the fact that Steyer\u2019s campaign was largely self-funded. To Kneen, the fact that Steyer had spent so much of his own money on the race \u2014 more than $37 million in January and February alone \u2014 was part of the appeal.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s less controlled by special interests, corporations, political action committees,\u201d Kneen said.<\/p>\n Related Stories from Sacramento Bee<\/p>\n Pro-Palestinian protesters are removed from a campaign event for Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire running for governor, in Sacramento on Thursday. The protesters repeatedly yelled for Steyer to acknowledge the Gaza war as a genocide. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com <\/p>\n
Sacramento native Gina Coates asks a question during a campaign stop for Democratic governor candidate Tom Steyer in Sacramento on Thursday. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com <\/p>\n
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