A crowded field of candidates is still vying for the chance to become California’s next governor, with the primary election looming.

One Democratic candidate has poured in a record-breaking amount of money for broadcast advertisements, to try and secure a spot in the top-two primary — billionaire Tom Steyer. 

A former hedge fund manager and 2020 presidential candidate, Steyer’s political experience has largely been as a fundraiser for Democratic campaigns, as well as liberal or progressive causes. 

And he is one of the Democratic frontrunners in the 2026 California gubernatorial race, touting a progressive platform.

Steyer spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about his plans to address California’s issues, and how he interprets the “billionaire” label differently from his critics.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

A lot of media coverage refers to you as a billionaire. What does that title mean to you? 

It actually means nothing, and I'll tell you why. I didn't inherit any money. I started a business, it went well, I ran it for 27 years. And I walked away from it because it was absolutely unsatisfying for me, and I was worried that I would die without ever having lived. My wife and I have said, and we are doing it, that we will give away our money while we're alive in pursuit of the progressive kinds of ideas that I'm pushing in this campaign, and that I have pursued as a private citizen in the public sector.

I think I have a very nice lifestyle, don't get me wrong, but I don't live in the way that people picture billionaires. I'm trying to be a good citizen, in a traditional Californian and American way, about standing up for what's right. I have an image in my mind of billionaires that's not flattering because I see Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. I see these people sounding arrogant, self-interested, uncaring and I think, “those are not the people I want running my life, that's for darn sure.”

If you look at this race, when they put the seven leading candidates on stage and said, "Would you support a billionaire's tax?" Only one said, “yes” and the one was me. To me what I'm representing is trying to stand up for working Californians. I feel like I don't have any conflict because I don't have to take money from any of these big corporations. I can be independent. I can do what's right and I don't have to answer for somebody who's paying for me.

Your political experience has largely been campaign fundraising for Democrats and progressive causes, not elected office. How does your experience prepare you to lead a state of 40 million people? 

I think everybody knows what the problems are in this state; no one can afford to live in this state, normal Californians cannot make ends meet. That is a question about housing, healthcare, electricity costs, gas at the pump, and food. I built a business, a big business from scratch. And as a private citizen in the public sector, I have gotten a lot of things done. We registered 1.2 million young Californians, something the Democratic Party has never come close to doing. My wife and I pushed to get free breakfast and free lunch for every school kid in California. It happened. We need somebody who's going to get results. 

I think we're going to have to have someone who will get results and shake things up. That's not going to come from inside the system. That's not going to come from a career politician who's built into the fabric of the status quo. The status quo isn't working. 

You go around this state and you realize how desperate people are to make ends meet, how stretched they are, and there's no sense of that urgency here. They say housing crisis, but they don't really mean crisis. It's not urgent, we'll pass some laws that will get better — that's not true. What I'm talking about is taking on the status quo, breaking the corporate interest power over this state so that we can get the cost down. 

If you were elected governor, what would be some of your immediate actions to make California more affordable?

On the first day I'll call a special election to close a corporate tax loophole called “split roll”… which is worth over $20 billion a year to this date. We need that revenue [for] education, healthcare, for this state to actually not have the structural hole that the [Legislative Analyst’s Office] says it has. 

I'm also going to start on the first day working to curb the power of the electric monopolies… PG&E, SoCal Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric. They have a legal monopoly, people are not allowed to compete with them. They are overseen and regulated by the Public Utilities Commission. They have very perverse incentives, and the result has been electricity costs that are twice as high as the national average. 

If you look at the farmers in the Central Valley who are under PG&E. Our farmers pay three times as much for their electricity as Texas farmers. It's hurting them. Fresno has literally the highest electric rates in the United States, it's really hot there in the summer. People use a lot of electricity because they need to cool off, so combine really high heat with really high electricity prices and you've got a real problem. I'm going to start regulating them differently and also making it possible for people to compete on a local level. 

California also has the highest gas prices in the country, and right now those are incredibly painful.  How do you reconcile ambitious climate goals here in California with the cost burden shouldered by Californians?

That last buck-and-a-quarter per gallon at the pump, that is just a windfall profit for the oil and gas companies, for Chevron. That is just a gift to them. Their costs didn't go up because Donald Trump declared a war in Iran. They put him in office, he's the oil and gas president. That's a windfall profit that's been estimated at $70 billion. 

In the past when there have been these spikes in gasoline prices, that have no relationship with the cost of producing that gasoline, there's been a windfall profit tax. I think we should have that because the price of gasoline is absolutely murdering Californians right now. We should take that money and not send it to the government, but send it back to every Californian. 

You have strong differences with the Trump Administration. As governor, are there any ways you could maybe work or collaborate with President Trump?

I got eight million signatures to impeach Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018 because I said, “I've been in enough boardrooms to know a crook when I see one. This guy's a crook. He's stealing from us every day, he hates America and Americans, and he's going to try and wreck this country.” I haven't changed my opinion on that.

You're not the first person who said to me: is there anything where you could work with Donald Trump? And my answer to you is maybe. The one thing that maybe the federal government would help us with, and that is thinking about competing in the film and entertainment business against foreign countries. They were giving huge tax credits to do filming in those countries, because they want to steal our business. I believe it's possible the federal government will help California in pushing back on that, and making sure we keep the film and entertainment business.

The Associated Press reported your campaign has spent or booked close to $200 million in ads, which is the most expensive political advertising campaign in the country. What do you say to the average Californian who has legitimate concerns about the influence of money and billionaires in politics?

The corporations and billionaires have spent a record amount of money to try and stop me. PG&E, Chevron, Uber, Airbnb, the people who are against single-payer healthcare… all of the corporate special interests who feel threatened by me are spending millions of dollars against me. I was the only person on stage who said that I would support a billionaire's tax, the billionaires noticed that too. They're supporting anybody but me. I'm not taking money from any of those interests. I can be absolutely straightforward in supporting California workers. That's what this race has become. 

There are really only three people who can be in the top two. That is a hard-right MAGA Republican, Steve Hilton, who Donald Trump has endorsed. What I would think of as a corporate Democrat, Xavier Becerra, every single one of those corporations is supporting him. He was asked,  “what would you change in California,” [and] he said, "We're doing pretty well… we're the fourth biggest economy in the world. We must be doing something right.” I.e. “I'm not going to change anything." If you think that's true, that's your candidate. 

There's one person in this race who's saying single-payer healthcare, reduce electricity costs, close a corporate tax loophole, and use it to improve our education system which is ranked 38th out of 50 in the United States. Somebody who's willing to make polluters pay, who has an environmental policy. Xavier Becerra does not have an environmental policy. He's taking money from the big oil companies including specifically Chevron. I view this race as very simple: do the people run California or do the corporations run California?

Two social media influencers who support Xavier Becerra filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, accusing your campaign of paying dozens of third-party influencers to publish supportive content without proper disclaimers. How do you respond to those accusations?

One in five people get their political news from these online creative people. We have always been involved with them, we have never paid for an endorsement. We've gotten together with people who agree with us over the issues. We pay them for their time. We don't pay them for what they write and we don't pay them for an endorsement. This is an attempt to try and build us a controversy over nothing. We fully disclosed and obeyed every single letter of the law. 

This is a question about accessing an important part of the communications ecosystem that exists now. The only thing I've seen in this whole campaign that I consider to be deceptive or unfair is the fact that the Becerra campaign has used a ton of bots to try and pretend that there's more going online for them, and to attack anybody who says anything about us. It's not illegal, but it's very deceptive. And it’s not transparent.

You can find all of our interviews with the candidates for governor here.

Tensions are growing in the race for Sacramento’s 7th Congressional District seat days ahead of the June 2 primary.

Democratic Congresswoman Doris Matsui has represented the Sacramento area for over 20 years. She faces one of the strongest challenges in her career from progressive candidate Mai Vang, a Sacramento City Councilmember. In the weeks leading up to the primary, voters are seeing the two campaigns clash.

This past Memorial Day weekend, several conservative news outlets highlighted moments where Vang stood silently and chose not to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance at public meetings.

But Vang publicly explained months ago why she does not participate. She wrote on social media that she uses those moments to reflect on injustice and harm affecting communities locally and globally.

Leslie Jacobs, a professor at McGeorge School of Law, said elected officials can't be forced to participate in patriotic speech.

"The government can't compel someone to say the Pledge of Allegiance or salute the flag," Jacobs said. "They actually have a constitutional right not to if they don't want to."

Jacobs said elected officials can still face public scrutiny over the messages they send.

"People are watching all the time the decisions that people who are in elected office, or running for elected office, are making about what they say and do," she said.

The pledge issue is only one of several disputes that have come up between the two campaigns in the days leading up to election night.

 

On Friday morning, a group of labor unions and progressive organizations supporting Vang gathered outside Matsui's Sacramento office to criticize what they say is a continued effort to help Republican candidate Zachariah Wooden advance through California's top-two primary system. In that system, only the leading two candidates advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. 

The groups claimed Matsui directed independent expenditure groups to spend $100,000 to support Wooden, but did not provide evidence. They argued Matsui would benefit from facing a Republican in November. That could be an easier matchup for Matsui in the Democrat-leaning district compared with having to face another Democrat.

The criticism began when Vang’s team claimed that Matsui's campaign website identified Wooden as “the candidate for Republican and Republican-leaning voters" and described him as the Republican choice for the June 2 primary. Vang’s campaign maintains it was intended to encourage Republican voters to consolidate around Wooden.

Vang also criticized Matsui's campaign strategy in a statement to CapRadio.

"Days before the upcoming primary, Matsui loaned herself $1.4 million and steered her aligned super PACs to bankroll and boost a MAGA Republican by any means necessary," Vang said.

Matsui’s campaign strategist, Roger Salazar, rejected the allegation that they would boost a Republican candidate.

"Mai Vang's supporters, who have spent more than $630,000 in out-of-state super PAC money on purely negative attacks at Vang's explicit direction, have no standing to lecture anyone about money in politics," Salazar said in a statement. 

Salazar added that Matsui "knows exactly what's at stake with MAGA Republicans like Zachariah Wooden."

Republican political strategist Rob Stutzman has been observing the race. He said it stands out because Matsui has spent much of her congressional career without a major challenge.

"We've seen the Matsui campaign take on the tactic of trying to help Republican voters consolidate around one Republican, with the hopes of that Republican pushing through and avoiding a messy and expensive runoff with Vang,” he said. 

"It's pretty simple. Doris Matsui has gone unchallenged throughout her career," Stutzman added. "What you have to worry about in a safe seat, of course, is ultimately a primary challenge."

Stutzman said voters pay less attention to the daily back-and-forth between campaigns. But, he noted, age is one of the biggest factors voters may consider beyond the political attacks and social media exchanges.

Matsui, 81, has represented the district since 2005 after winning a special election following the death of her husband, former Congressman Robert Matsui. Vang, 41, was first elected to the Sacramento City Council in 2022.

"Joe Biden clearly looked too old. Nancy Pelosi was older. So is Doris Matsui convincing people she's not too old?" Stutzman said. "I think she probably is, at least for now.”

Gabriela Lena Frank is about to become a household name. She was named Musical America’s Composer of the Year. Her opera about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is being performed at the Met, making her the first woman of color ever to have an opera staged there. And earlier this month she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. To make it even more special, she is one of our own! She is from Berkeley originally and currently lives in Mendocino County, while also acting as Artist in Residence for the lucky students right here at UOP. 

In this feature we discuss all of the above and enjoy examples of many iterations of her composing. 

Sacramento steps up to the plate, ready to play ball.

Leaders from Sacramento and West Sacramento officially announced Thursday their bid for a Major League Baseball (MLB) expansion team. The “Sacramento Pitch” campaign has already secured $1.8 billion in public and private investments.

The expansion team is planned for West Sacramento’s Bridge District with plans for a 50-acre mixed use development and a modern ballpark. West Sacramento currently houses the Athletics who are slated to leave for Las Vegas before the 2028 season.

The Sacramento Pitch organization was formed to help land the expansion team and has many prominent committee members including the chair Mark Friedman, the founder and chairman of Fulcrum Property Group, Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty and West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero.

“As you know, MLB has not yet formally announced an expansion effort, but when they do, Sacramento will be ready,” Friedman said at Thursday’s press conference. “We spent the last year working quietly behind the scenes to build the partnerships, the investments, and the long-term vision in order to compete effectively for an expansion franchise.”

The rest of the organization committee includes President and CEO of Greater Sacramento Econmoic Council Barry Broome, Visit Sacramento CEO Mike Testa, Sacramento native and former MLB player Derrek Lee, World Series Champion Dusty Baker, COO of the Sacramento Kings Matina Kolokotronis, Chairman of United Auburn Indian Community John Williams, and Chairwoman of Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians Regina Cuellar.

Friedman said the majority of the private investment came from two of “Sacramento’s most enduring communities,” the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the United Auburn Indian community.

“We are honored to have them as partners in this effort,” he said. “Their investment is not simply a financial transaction, but it's a recognition of their history, because Sacramento is not just their hometown, it's their homeland.”

MLB is expected to expand from 30 to 32 teams by the time league commissioner Rob Manfred retires in 2029. 

Mayor McCarty recognizes it’s going to be a long process, but he said they’re setting the foundation today.

“We announced a local ownership group and laid out the financing and made our case,” he said. “This is the beginning of our quest, and we know we're competitive, but we're putting together a proposal that's going to be available to pull it off for Sacramento.”

Although private investors were announced, there was one thing that was not clear: who would actually own the team? 

McCarty said they’re still evaluating who the lead owner would be, but there are options. He said he wants more people in Sacramento to come watch more Athletics games live because it’ll increase their chances of landing a team here.

“We're looking at what makes the most sense for us and the lead investor, as well as supporting baseball today,” he said. “That's one thing that we have the other cities don't, we have an MLB team here today.”

Baseball legend and Sacramento-area native Dusty Baker told CapRadio he would love for the fans of Sacramento to have their own baseball team.

“It's a good city, we got a good downtown, we got area of space; it's growing,” Baker said. “This is a wide base, and we have loyal fans in this area, because I've seen it with the Giants, I've seen it with the A's.”

A national MLB expansion landscape

Sacramento’s bid will now compete against a number of other cities looking to secure the next MLB expansion team, with some having worked on their pitches for years.

Maury Brown is a senior contributor for Forbes and a national baseball reporter. He told CapRadio’s Andrew Garcia on Insight the bidding process will include a variety of factors, from television market size and population, to a region’s corporate base.

“The ownership would need to cobble up $2 billion, maybe $2.5-$3 billion for the expansion fee and have some money in reserve,” Brown said. “They don’t want to have clubs come online and potentially go right into duress… they want to be able to cover up to three years in losses.”

Brown said markets in the Western U.S. that are in the mix for a new team include Portland and Salt Lake City, the latter of which he considers a frontrunner. 

But Brown said Sacramento’s bid has a major advantage — the land acquisition by its developers.

“Having that available and being able to target that, have it fully entitled and ready to go right now, is a huge win for Sacramento,” he explained. “That’s largely been a challenge for some of the markets… so I think that they’re in a surprisingly good position early on.”

Brown also said Sacramento having only one major-league pro sports team — the Kings — could also be an advantage, as it prevents the media market from being diluted. 

Going forward, Brown said establishing any new team — regardless of location — is still far off. “They haven’t even announced an expansion committee, so we’re a ways off from an announcement,” he said.

Brown said MLB will likely form a committee to field bids once negotiations with the players union wrap up in 2027, adding that more cities could throw their hats in the ring. He said while Manfred wants to vote on expansion teams before he retires in 2029, fans would still need to wait years to set foot inside the park — in the Capital City or elsewhere. 

“Those ballparks would probably not come online until somewhere around 2033,” Brown said. “If things go as cleanly as possible, that would be the most direct timeline.”

Most California voters will cast their ballots in the June 2 primary without ever setting foot in a polling place. They will fill out a vote-by-mail ballot at the kitchen table, sign the envelope and drop it in a mailbox. The process is usually that simple.

But a handful of details about timing, postmarks and signatures can trip up even experienced mail-in voters; and turn what should be a counted ballot into a rejected one.

Postmark deadline

California ballots must be postmarked by Election Day to count, and they must arrive at the county elections office no later than seven days after, by Tuesday, June 9.

Election officials across the Sacramento region say the safest approach is to mail a ballot well before the deadline. Armando Salud-Ambriz, the Nevada County registrar of voters, said he gives the same advice every cycle.

"Always put it in the mail four days prior to election day, so that Friday or that Saturday," Salud-Ambriz said.

Beyond ensuring a timely postmark, mailing early also gets a ballot into the first batch of results released after polls close on Election Night. Ballots that arrive later are counted in the days, and sometimes weeks, that follow.

Placer County registrar of voters Ryan Ronco said voters still holding their ballot a week before Election Day should consider another return method.

"You should be thinking about not using the post office to return that ballot to an elections office," Ronco said.

Election Day mail

The U.S. Postal Service drew attention last fall when it reminded election officials nationwide that ballots dropped in a mailbox far from a regional postal hub may not be postmarked the same day. Ballots picked up after the final pickup time, or from areas more than 50 miles from a processing facility, can carry a next-day postmark. That means the ballot would not count.

Salud-Ambriz said the notification was not a new rule.

"It was more of a clarification nationwide as to what was already happening," he said.

Voters who hold onto their ballot until Election Day can take it inside a post office and ask the clerk at the counter to postmark it on the spot. Postal employees may refer to the action as "canceling" the ballot, but the result is the same — an Election Day postmark.

Voters can also bypass the mail entirely by dropping their ballots off at any official ballot drop box, vote center or county elections office. Drop box and vote center locations are listed on each county's elections website.

Sign, Scan and Go

Placer County is among a small number of Sacramento-region counties offering "Sign, Scan and Go" voting. Voters bring their vote-by-mail ballot to a vote center, sign the voter roster instead of the return envelope.

"You can actually see your ballot be counted in front of you," Ronco said.

The service is available at all 30 of Placer County's vote centers. Most other counties in the region — including Sacramento and Yolo — remain "central count" jurisdictions, meaning mail-in ballots dropped at a vote center are transported back to the elections office for later processing.

Ronco said many regional elections offices are open on the weekends ahead of an election. Voters with questions can call their local office for help.

Signatures

A signature is required on the return envelope of every vote-by-mail ballot. County election workers compare it to a signature on file in voter records. A mismatched signature can prevent a ballot from being counted, though counties are required to contact voters and give them a chance to correct it. Voters have 21 days after Election Day to fix the problem.

Ronco said counties also keep a long history of voter signatures, not just the most recent, to account for natural changes to signatures.

Ballot tracking

California voters can sign up for the Secretary of State's "Where's My Ballot?" service, which sends text, email or phone notifications when a ballot is mailed, received and counted.

Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, June 2. Vote centers in Voter's Choice Act counties — including Sacramento, Placer and Yolo — opened on a staggered schedule beginning May 23. Voters can register and cast a ballot at any vote center or county elections office through Election Day.