Tom Steyer spent $216 million of his own money to run for governor of California - here's where that ranks

MW Tom Steyer spent $216 million of his own money to run for governor of California - here's where that ranks

By Victor Reklaitis

The former fund manager looks unlikely to advance beyond this month's primary election

California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer speaks during an election-night watch party on Tuesday in San Francisco.

The latest big-spending and self-funding politician is Tom Steyer, a 2026 Democratic candidate for California governor who looks on track to be eliminated from the race to take over for term-limited incumbent Gavin Newsom.

Steyer, a billionaire former hedge-fund manager who also ran for president in 2020, has spent $216 million of his own money on his run for governor, according to data from California's secretary of state.

That's a record level of self-funding for a California gubernatorial candidate - topping the $144 million spent by billionaire Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay $(EBAY)$, in her unsuccessful 2010 campaign. When you adjust for inflation, however, Whitman's outlay is about the same as Steyer's, because $144 million in 2010 is worth around $220 million today.

Steyer spent even more of his own money on his unsuccessful 2020 presidential run - about $342 million, according to Federal Election Commission data. That means he has shelled out a total of $558 million on two big political campaigns.

But another former Democratic presidential hopeful has outspent him overall, as billionaire Michael Bloomberg pumped about $1 billion of his own fortune into his unsuccessful 2020 White House bid. Bloomberg, co-founder of the eponymous financial news and data company that competes with MarketWatch parent Dow Jones, also paid out a total of $261 million on his three successful mayoral campaigns in New York City.

Self-funded wealthy candidates have been a part of American politics for decades, said Robin Kolodny, a Temple University professor of political science with an expertise in campaign finance.

"It's hardly new," she told MarketWatch, mentioning the presidential campaigns of Steve Forbes and Ross Perot in the 1990s. "This has been going on for a while."

But Kolodny emphasized that while having a lot of your own money is a huge advantage, there is also a disadvantage for wealthy candidates if they don't do fundraising - and it often shows up in the actual election results.

"It's not how most people think of it, but fundraising is campaigning. So even if you have a smaller amount of money, having more donors gets you more than just cash - it gets you literal buy-in," she said. There can be a multiplier effect from supporters who gave only $5 but then displayed a yard sign or bumper sticker and talked to neighbors about their candidate.

On Wednesday, with about 58% of the vote counted, Steyer looked unlikely to rank among the top two vote-getters in the California governor's race, who will advance to November's general election. He had 19.6% of the vote, behind fellow Democrat Xavier Becerra at 25.4% and Republican Steve Hilton at 27.8%, according to Associated Press data.

Betting markets recently were giving Steyer between a 17% and 20% chance of advancing beyond the primary election. He gave an upbeat speech to supporters on Tuesday night as votes were getting tallied.

"We're going to wait till every ballot is counted. We're going to give democracy a time to work, and we know we finished really strong," Steyer said.

-Victor Reklaitis

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June 03, 2026 12:44 ET (16:44 GMT)

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