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The Uncomfortable Progressive Case for Tom Steyer
Despite being a billionaire himself, Steyer appears to be the only major candidate in California's governor race openly escalating conflict with the monopolies, corporate interests, and institutional failures driving the state's affordability crisis.
Jun 02, 2026
California voters are clearly hungry for change. The real question now is whether Democrats are willing to confront the corporate interests and entrenched systems standing in the way of it.
That is one reason a growing number of progressives, labor organizers, climate activists, and anti-corporate advocates are rallying behind Tom Steyer despite longstanding discomfort with billionaire politics.
At first glance, that coalition can feel contradictory. Progressives have spent years warning, correctly, about the dangers of concentrated wealth and billionaire influence in American politics. Many still believe that billionaires should not exist in a healthy democracy.
So why are so many anti-corporate organizers increasingly rallying behind one now?
The question is not whether candidates are perfect vessels for progressive ideals. The question is whether they are willing to pick the right fights.
Because politics is ultimately about conflict. It is about who is willing to challenge concentrated power, which interests candidates are willing to confront, and whether they are prepared to pursue structural change instead of simply managing decline.
The question is not whether someone benefited from broken systems. The question is whether they are willing to confront the systems that produced their own power in the first place.
And increasingly, Tom Steyer appears to be the only major candidate in California's governor race openly escalating conflict with the monopolies, corporate interests, and institutional failures driving the state's affordability crisis.
That matters because California is not entering a traditional election environment.
Recent polling suggests Xavier Becerra is increasingly likely to secure one of the two spots in California's top-two primary. Whether voters like it or not, that reality changes the strategic conversation.
At a moment when voters are demanding structural change, Becerra increasingly represents continuity politics. He has struggled to articulate a meaningful critique of the status quo or explain what he would fundamentally do differently than Gavin Newsom.
The question facing many progressive voters is no longer simply which candidate they prefer. It is whether a candidate willing to challenge concentrated power, monopoly interests, and entrenched systems will make it into the general election at all.
That matters because Steve Hilton is running aggressively as an anti-establishment change candidate. If Democrats allow this race to become a contest between a candidate associated with continuity and a Republican claiming the mantle of disruption, they risk ceding the language of change to the right.
You cannot defeat a change candidate with a status quo candidate.
You need a competing change agent.
Steyer is increasingly positioning himself as one.
What makes this politically significant is not simply that he uses progressive rhetoric. Plenty of candidates do that. What matters is that he is embracing policies that directly confront concentrated wealth and monopoly power, including support for single-payer healthcare, a billionaire tax, breaking up utility monopolies, lowering energy costs, expanding public education, and building affordable housing at scale.
Those are not symbolic positions. They are direct challenges to entrenched systems of political and economic power.
And increasingly, many progressives believe the clearest indicator of that conflict is not who Steyer is. It is who is lining up against him.
When utility monopolies, fossil fuel interests, anti-tax billionaires, and major corporations begin mobilizing against the same candidate, voters should pay attention.
That does not mean progressives suddenly agree with everything about Tom Steyer or billionaire politics generally. It means many recognize that political alignment matters more than biography alone.
The question is not whether candidates are perfect vessels for progressive ideals. The question is whether they are willing to pick the right fights.
For many progressives, supporting Steyer is not about abandoning skepticism toward wealth or power. It is about recognizing that in moments of deep public frustration, the most important political question becomes who is actually willing to confront the forces making life increasingly unaffordable, unstable, and unequal.
That is the uncomfortable reality reshaping this race.
The question facing California voters is no longer whether the state needs change.
It is whether a candidate willing to fight for that change will still be standing when the general election begins.
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California’s Choice: The Progressive Path or Centrist Stagnation
Today June 2, 2026, in California, voters have an opportunity to alter American history by electing progressives up and down the ballot.
Jun 02, 2026
Within national mythology, California is understood to be a progressive haven—with a ruling Democratic Party passing strong regulations, ever-higher taxes on the wealthy, and supporting unions to its heart’s desire.
Unfortunately, this is far from accurate. The Democratic Party may dominate California politics, but the wealthiest state in the union no longer leads the way with innovative laws and regulations, let alone serving the interests of working people, the poor, and the middle class.
Yes, California still has a progressive income tax, the nation’s highest gas taxes, relatively strong environmental regulations, and the world’s greatest public university system—but these are legacies of bygone eras. The story of the last 20 years of single-party Democratic rule is far less inspiring (unless you’re a Silicon Valley oligarch).
Now, as progressives are making significant gains across the country, revitalizing the Democratic Party in the process, the California party remains dominated by a caste of perennial incumbents committed to neoliberal centrism that, at best, generates incremental change.
Rest assured that progressives on the ballot are part of a national movement that understands that the Democratic Party has bifurcated into a vibrant progressive wing and an increasingly sclerotic moderate establishment.
Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. Once Democrats started winning supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature, corporations and big money interests stopped wasting their time courting Republicans. They focused their lobbying on Democrats, and to great effect. California’s Democratic Party, and its leading figures, are more beholden to big business and wealthy donors than almost any state Democratic Party. This, in turn, means Democratic incumbents accrue huge campaign war chests for their re-election.
The result is a more conservative party, one that is out of sync with the electorate. Want evidence? Ask yourself how many members of the Squad have come from California? The answer, of course, is zero. Yet all public opinion polling shows that the California electorate is decisively more progressive than the national average.
It’s true that Reps. Ro Khanna and Lateefah Simon are Squad adjacent, and a few others are solid progressives—but given that California represents about 20% of the Democratic Caucus in the US House, the state’s delegation is on balance middle-of-the-road.
This disconnect—between the political beliefs of Californians and the policies supported by their elected representatives at the national, state, and even local levels—is a major barrier to the necessary transformation of the Democratic Party into a force able to vanquish the fascist-authoritarian GOP before it consolidates power and brings down the curtain on American democracy.
Simply put, the American public increasingly understands that the status quo ante of neoliberal policy, which has organized the country’s economy since the 1980s, produces one result: ever-increasing wealth inequality. The Democratic Party must break from the economics of the Clinton and Obama administrations. The Democratic base and the general public want policies that boost the lives of working Americans, just as they want a sane foreign policy and an honest democracy. They want progressive policies.
Today June 2, 2026, in California, voters have an opportunity to alter American history by electing progressives up and down the ballot. This will transform the largest state Democratic Party, bringing it back in sync with the sentiment of the state’s population so that it can lead in the development of a new 21st century social justice compact.
There are many progressive champions with a real chance of victory today—and in the general election runoff on November 3. To start, there is a clear choice at the top of the ticket: Tom Steyer for governor.
Steyer is one of three viable candidates, two of which will make the runoff. In the best circumstance, the two democrats, Steyer and Xaiver Beccera, will take first and second—a result that will translate into more Democratic victories across the state in November. However, MAGA-supporting Republican Steve Hilton still looks likely to disrupt that result. So, it’s essential to vote, and get everyone you know to vote for Steyer by 8:00 pm PT today.
Admittedly, it sticks in the throat to be supporting a billionaire, but the simple truth is that Steyer will pursue a transformative progressive policy agenda. In contrast, Xavier Beccera, who 20 years ago seemed a sincere progressive, long ago redefined himself as an establishment Democrat. Becerra is committed to maintaining Gov. Gavin Newsom’s policies that have left California stranded with the nation’s co-equal highest poverty rate, an affordability crisis that makes New York City residents blush, and a pronounced failure to lead on environmental and social policies in the manner the world expects of California.
Tom Steyer, by contrast, supports a billionaire’s tax, meaningful living wage legislation, aggressive incentives to re-boost green energy production (and film production too), and, most tellingly, a single-payer universal healthcare system for everyone in the state. A top-two finish by Steyer will guarantee a powerful debate about the direction of the state over the next five months
Beyond the governor’s race, in nearly every US house district, state assembly, and senate race, and significant city and local elections, there are strong progressive candidates challenging the dominant California Democratic Party mainstream—many of whom are poised to advance to the November runoff. Still, it’s worth noting that this has been a very confusing election season due to redistricting (and the chaos of the governor’s race), such that down-ballot candidates have had a difficult time attracting adequate attention. But rest assured that progressives on the ballot are part of a national movement that understands that the Democratic Party has bifurcated into a vibrant progressive wing and an increasingly sclerotic moderate establishment. Please do the necessary research to learn who the progressives are in your district.
So far, it’s been a very good year for progressives—let’s continue the momentum tomorrow in New Jersey, Montana, Iowa, New Mexico, South Carolina, and the largest state and soon-to-be truest bastion of progressive public policy, California.
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The Dems Must Adapt an Aggressive, Progressive Midterm Strategy
Despite positioning itself to the conservative center of the political spectrum in recent decades, the Democratic Party can yet build on its members' near universal call for a more muscular confrontation with Republicans and Trump.
May 25, 2026
The Democrat's 2026 midterm electoral strategy remains essentially the same as it was during the melted-down 2024 presidential election: Focus on President Donald Trump's obvious character flaws and failings rather than highlight the critical issues and offer progressive alternatives. Waiting for Trump to shoot himself in the foot is not a winning campaign strategy. Neither are abstract ideas about defending democracy and saving the nation from autocracy or fascism. Voters want practical approaches to everyday challenges of rising food costs, prohibitively expensive and inadequate health insurance, skyrocketing medical costs, exorbitant childcare and pre-K expenses, and spiraling energy pricing.
Since the last quarter of the 20th century, establishment Democrats and their leaders have slid so far to the political right that progressive, populist initiatives are undermined by fear of taxes and debt. The Democratic Party has allowed conservatives to label it as a party of spendthrift liberals and radical leftists rather than actually embracing a progressive agenda offering optimistic, creative, and constructive alternatives to the conservatives' agenda favoring the wealthy and corporations. Due to its conservative turn, moreover, Democratic leadership is decidedly reluctant to back progressive and politically aggressive Democratic candidates, as seen in the candidacies of Zohran Mamdani in New York and Graham Platner in Maine.
The political table has been so tilted toward conservative goals that the survival of the Democratic Party and popular elections itself are clearly threatened. Gerrymandering, opposing mail-in ballots, requiring stricter voter identification, confiscating state voting records and increasing the presence of security forces at polls are among the voter suppression tactics that conservatives are employing to rig the midterm and other future elections. The use of the military to confiscate ballots in the upcoming midterm elections is far from out of the question. Financing independent candidates to siphon off votes from Democratic ones is another ploy to be expected. To counter these anti-democratic tactics, Democrats must frame these challenges in practical personal terms—as corrupt means to prevent citizens from influencing policy, as ways to deny such popular initiatives as universal healthcare and control over other cost-of-living expenses. Complaining about the threat to democracy simply isn't concrete and personal enough.
Absent vociferous opposition to the conservative direction in international affairs, the Democrats also cede this critical ground to Republicans. This effectively facilitates the displacement of diplomacy by militarism as the principal approach to resolving global issues and conflicts. Without alerting and educating the American public to its profound and eminently dangerous military, political, and economic implications, the Democrats' influence here is essentially neutered. The present conflicts in the Middle East illustrate this point. Despite expressed public concern for supplying Israel with the munitions used against Palestinians in Gaza, the Democrats demurred from leveraging the removal of military support to promote a ceasefire and negotiated settlement. Neither did the party bring to the public's attention the US abandoning diplomatic negotiations with Iran in February, negotiations that were reportedly making progress on nuclear energy concerns. The combination of unrestricted military aid and disingenuous diplomacy fueled a regional war. This is a reality that must be made emphatically clear to American citizens.
Running against a personality cult and election rigging without offering hope for a better future through specific, concrete policy commitments effectively puts Democrats on the defensive and abandons the progressive populist movement in its own party.
Despite positioning itself to the conservative center of the political spectrum in recent decades, the Democratic Party can yet build on its members' near universal call for a more muscular confrontation with Republicans and Trump. One starting point is massive military spending. The disastrous domestic and global effects of US military campaigns and overall defense spending present Democrats with a historic political opportunity. To take advantage of this opportunity the party must immediately take the offensive by highlighting the deleterious impact of unparalleled military expenditures. This campaign strategy can unfold in specific ways, drawing into high relief the connection between allocating vast resources away from social programs into military coffers.
First, levels of defense spending are inversely, and critically, correlated with spending for services that profoundly impact the quality of life of the vast majority of Americans. The proposed $1.5 trillion military expenditure for 2027—a 44% increase over 2026 and more than half of the total government budget—sequesters funding that could be used for domestic purposes, programs ranging from education, public health, housing, transportation, and social services to agriculture, science, and environmental protection. This comparison highlights the distorted priorities of the nation and directly relates to the jaundiced attitude toward the federal government and the disaffection of large swaths of American voters. It further counters the impact of disinformation and misinformation that aggravate divisions and suspicions fueled by negative propaganda and conspiracy rhetoric promoted by the Trump administration.
Second, heavy defense spending and military confrontation and conflict contribute to global economic and political instability beyond the devastating human suffering inflicted by military tactics and war. This course blazes a treacherous path that violates human rights and international law, fraying alliances and degrading the country's respect and reputation internationally. The escalation of military exchanges and strategies that Iran and the US are pursuing in the Strait of Hormuz signify not only the destructive international impact but also the extensive domestic economic stress it thrusts on Americans. The price of gasoline and its broad inflationary effect are prime examples. Defense spending drives up national debt with minimal social benefit. While military expenditure does provide jobs in the defense industry, a portion of savings resulting from limiting military spending can be used to retrain displaced workers for new high-paying employment in renewable energy and other industries the government could incentivize, industries where workers and their unions could be protected by statutory law.
Third, and amply illustrated by the militarized standoff in the Gulf of Hormuz, the Iran War is strengthening American economic competitors while splintering alliances with nations now losing confidence in US military and commercial relations. Fearful of the impulsive, unreliable posturing and military aggression of the Trump administration, countries in various regions of the world are forging commercial relations with China. Moreover, Beijing's massive investment in improving and producing renewable energy and its delivery—a strategic market position the current administration and its congressional supporters have ceded to the Chinese—is a wise and calculated enterprise. This investment displaces future scientific, technological, and commercial development in this country, further restricting employment and scientific investment in a growing sustainable energy source. At the same time, the progressive shift from oil and gas to renewable fuels may redirect international finance based in Wall Street to direct and indirect investment in economic expansion in China and in parts of the world that adopt and eventually depend on Chinese technology.
Last, the enormous investment in defense is not justified relative to defense spending worldwide. The US spends more on defense than the next six countries combined—three times as much as China and five times as much as Russia. With an over 40% boost in next year's military budget the disparity in military expenditures will even widen the military spending gap between America and other countries. Given the many social needs in this country and the military's aggressive engagement in projecting its power, enormous resources heedlessly dedicated to the military undermines quality of life across the nation and is simply unsustainable. Favoring diplomacy over military action, moreover, brings greater stability to international relations, reduces unnecessary military expenditures, and, in turn, can redirect funds to investment in international commercial relations to spur sustainable domestic economic growth.
As this brief examination of America's misplaced priorities demonstrates, the Democrats not only have clear opportunities to undermine the false narratives of the present administration and its supporters, they also have the public responsibility to do so. A similarly focused, analytical, and expansive argument may be made with tax cuts for the wealthy, with the severe personnel reductions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and elsewhere, and with myriad other issues. These campaign arguments should be, moreover, framed as national security threats.
Squandering such a political opportunity and advantage will weaken the party overall. It further undercuts the groundwork laid by local party members—through demonstrations and campaigns to increase voter turnout—by ignoring local calls for a more aggressive campaign strategy that directly challenges Republicans and offers sustainable social, economic, and environmental policies.
The party should not wait for a wave of nationalism to be ginned up in the wake of a specious “deal” with Iran or for an “October surprise” like the sudden discovery of funds to help pay Americans' medical bills. Running against a personality cult and election rigging without offering hope for a better future through specific, concrete policy commitments effectively puts Democrats on the defensive and abandons the progressive populist movement in its own party, sacrificing forward-thinking and future planning to backward-thinking and complacency. This is a losing proposition in the short-term and long-term future. It not only erodes the power of the vote but it will also alienate millions more Americans at a time when creative, constructive leadership and citizen engagement are imperative to meet the existential social, economic, and ecological challenges of the coming years and decades.
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