Tom Steyer is pitching his gubernatorial campaign as an existential fight between working Californians and corporate power, running on a platform including single-payer health care, taxing oil company windfall profits and slashing electric utility rates by a quarter.<\/p>\n
\u2018Judge me by my enemies\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI am the only billionaire running for governor, but I am very far from the only billionaire in this race,\u201d the 68-year-old climate activist and businessman told reporters at a May 26 American Community Media briefing.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudge me by my enemies,\u201d he has said in one campaign video<\/a>: Steyer, who previously ran for president in 2020, has self-funded much of his campaign and faces a record nearly $50 million spent against him by corporations including Chevron, Meta, PG&E, realtor groups, Airbnb, the California Medical Association (CMA) \u2014 the most powerful anti-single payer lobby group.<\/p>\n He explained that his leading \u201ccorporate Democrat\u201d opponent, Xavier Becerra, received the maximum legal contribution through CMA\u2019s<\/a> political action committee, $500,000<\/a> from Chevron and $950,000<\/a> from Meta a day before firing 10% of its workforce.<\/p>\n When Becerra was asked, on television<\/a> last week what he would do differently as governor, Steyer noted his response was little more than satisfaction with the status quo, describing his statement as \u201c\u2018We seem to be doing pretty well,\u2019 kind of \u2018steady as she goes.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want no change, if you want the corporations to continue to drive up our costs, there\u2019s a candidate for that,\u201d said Steyer. \u201cI\u2019m the person who is unequivocally, with no conflicts, working for working people, that\u2019s my only interest. That\u2019s going to be my measuring stick of success.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I\u2019m for shared prosperity\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cCalifornians can\u2019t afford to live in California anymore,\u201d Steyer said, arguing that the state\u2019s affordability crisis is an extraction operation by unchecked corporate interests.<\/p>\n He pledged to build a million homes Californians can afford, pointing to an Oakland-based nonprofit community bank<\/a> he and his wife founded that has already financed 17,000 low-income housing units as proof he can deliver.<\/p>\n Steyer also led the School Meals for All<\/a> initiative making California the first state in history to guarantee free breakfast and lunch to all public school students, founded a nonprofit<\/a> that has registered over 1.3 million young voters nationwide and spearheaded Proposition 39<\/a>, which directed $1 billion annually to school energy upgrades and clean energy jobs by closing an out-of-state corporate tax loophole.<\/p>\n He proposed closing another corporate property tax loophole known as the \u201cTrump Tax Loophole<\/a>\u201d to reclaim $20 billion for schools and healthcare.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m for shared prosperity. We are not sharing the prosperity. We have the highest poverty rate in the United States of America. Our school systems need to get much better. We need to deliver health care as a right, we need to make this a state where people can think they can buy a house again and can afford rent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Californians pay nearly twice<\/a> the national average for electric utilities.<\/p>\n Steyer pledged to cut rates by at least 25% by restructuring how the Public Utilities Commission operates and enabling local competition to break the monopolies\u2019 grip.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to take my word for it,\u201d he said: PG&E alone has spent $13.5 million against Steyer \u2014 $17 million including other utility companies like SoCal Edison and Sempra.<\/p>\n On gasoline, he called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies \u2014 with revenue to go directly back to Californians hurt by rising prices, not into the general fund \u2014 arguing that the Iran conflict has added roughly $1.50 per gallon at the pump without costing Chevron a cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey are gouging us,\u201d he said. \u201cThe head of the Western States Petroleum Association has said<\/a> they have a duty to gouge us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He pushed renewable energy as a savings mechanism: \u201cClean energy is cheaper<\/a>. We need to deploy it, and we need to put money in the pockets of Californians.\u201d<\/p>\n Single-payer healthcare<\/p>\n \u201cHealthcare is a right for every Californian,\u201d said Steyer, who supports single-payer healthcare. \u201cThe idea that the system we have is sustainable is not true, because what we\u2019re seeing every year is the state taking away healthcare in one way or another from Californians.\u201d<\/p>\n Health care costs have generally risen<\/a> at twice the rate of inflation for 50 years, while recent federal Medi-Cal cuts under the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill<\/a>\u201d have blown an estimated $9 billion hole in California\u2019s budget met with just over $100 million in the May budget revision.\u00a0<\/p>\n Steyer acknowledged that moving to a full state single-payer system would require a federal waiver and a more cooperative administration in Washington, but he pledged to begin efforts on day one, and cited nurses unions\u2019 endorsement as evidence of his seriousness.\u00a0<\/p>\n He added that he was ready to take on pharmaceutical drug companies in order to lower health care costs: \u201cI know where they\u2019re taking advantage, rigging the system and screwing Californians \u2026 I\u2019m on Team California, and I want Team California to win every time.\u201d<\/p>\n Immigration and criminal justice<\/p>\n On immigration, Steyer has staked out arguably the most aggressive position in the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n He called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) \u201ca criminal organization that breaks the laws in California\u201d \u2014 \u201cWe need immigration services, but we don\u2019t need a criminal organization\u201d \u2014 and supported abolishing the agency, while acknowledging a governor can\u2019t do that unilaterally.\u00a0<\/p>\n What a governor can do is prosecute.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI will prosecute ICE agents for racially profiling Californians. That is illegal here. I will prosecute ICE agents for using violence against Californians,\u201d he said, adding that he would pursue accountability \u201cup the chain as far as Stephen Miller.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He also pledged to demand inspections of California\u2019s federal immigration detention facilities and to fund a state legal defense fund for people facing deportation, modeled on a private fund he and his wife launched in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n President Trump responded<\/a> to his immigration policies by attacking him online; so did ICE<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI considered both of those validations that I am doing the right thing,\u201d Steyer said. \u201cThe job of the governor of California is to stand between violence, between terror, between racial profiling and the people of California. I\u2019m going to do that for immigrants in this state every single time.\u201d<\/p>\n Steyer faced a question from the media on his hedge fund investment<\/a> in the private prison company CoreCivic 22 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n He described\u00a0 the stake as a mistake that he recognized and sold within a year: \u201cI made a mistake, I admitted it, but I also did a U-turn \u2026 I spent years trying to make sure that I was more than making up for it.\u201d<\/p>\n What followed was two decades of work to dismantle the for-profit system: Steyer backed a successful bill<\/a> to replace cash bail with pre-trial risk assessments, worked to end<\/a> automatic sentence enhancements and backed a successful bill<\/a> phasing out private prisons statewide.\u00a0<\/p>\n