Chevron $500,000 inflames dark-money fight in California

Chevron $500,000 – A record $79.6 million in outside spending is pouring into California’s governor’s race ahead of the June 2 primary, and the latest flashpoint—an independent committee backed by Chevron—has turned into a high-stakes argument over control, hypocrisy, and “dark

By the time the Chevron check hit an independent expenditure committee backing Xavier Becerra, the argument had already been set: whether candidates are truly insulated from the outside money flooding their races.

For a campaign that has tried to present itself as fueled by principle rather than backroom spending. Tom Steyer’s team pounced quickly. pointing to a $500. 000 donation reported to state election officials on Thursday. Steyer’s spokesman. Anthony York. said the campaign had been “running out of gas” until the latest half-million dollar influx from Chevron.

Becerra’s campaign did not accept that framing. It accused Steyer of misleading voters by suggesting the senator-freeze of outside influence is actually the candidate’s hand. The core of Becerra’s counterargument was straightforward: the $500. 000 went to an independent expenditure committee supporting him—an entity Becerra said he has no control over.

Steyer, for his part, made the fight personal. His message on the trail has leaned into a pointed standard for judging candidates—who is paying. and who is spending to oppose them. That theme has helped drive a far larger story taking shape across the state: record-setting independent spending that candidates insist they can’t control. but rivals can weaponize.

The broader spending picture is staggering. Corporations. labor unions. tech titans. Native American tribes and other special interests donated a record-shattering $79.6 million to independent committees focused on swaying California’s volatile governor’s race ahead of the June 2 primary. Veteran GOP strategist Martin Wilson. who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and worked on an outside effort backing San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s 2026 bid for governor. said he has never seen independent expenditures with this kind of impact on a governor’s race.

Election laws bar independent expenditure committees from communicating or coordinating with campaigns. allowing candidates to insist they have no control over the money pouring into these outside groups. But the spending has repeatedly turned the “wall” between campaigns and outside groups into a political battleground—performative on paper. hard to separate in practice.

Steyer’s team argued that Becerra’s complaint about the $500,000 is a denial of how the system works. Steyer spokesman Danni Wang said Chevron is charging Californians record gas prices on one hand and turning around to spend $500. 000 to elect Becerra with the other. Wang said Becerra was trying to play semantic gymnastics by pretending voters are too stupid to understand “dark money in politics. ” adding that Californians “aren’t buying it.”.

Becerra’s response raised its own moral attack. In a television interview this weekend. Becerra said it pains him to see candidates believe they must “descend to telling lies” to gain favor with voters. and he directly called Steyer’s characterization an “outright lie.” Becerra’s campaign also attacked Steyer’s credibility. arguing hypocrisy from a billionaire whose campaign is funded by profits from a hedge fund that made investments many voters oppose.

Becerra spokesman Jonathan Underland argued that Steyer “made his billions off fossil fuels and private prisons” before deciding he was qualified to run California. Underland said it was ironic only if Steyer’s checkbook weren’t so thick—contending Steyer now attacks the only candidate in the race who actually held Big Oil’s feet to the fire and beat President Trump 100 times as state attorney general.

That Chevron dispute lands on top of an uneven outside-spending landscape in the race.

The largest share of outside spending has been aimed at attacking Steyer, a leading Democrat in the contest. Nearly $32.3 million had been donated to opposing his candidacy as of Monday. according to the California Target Book. a nonpartisan political almanac tracking independent expenditure committees. Among major donors are utility giant PG&E. and a political action committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Assn. of Realtors’ independent expenditure committee. which combined involve utility. business. property tax and building issues affected by lawmakers and regulators in Sacramento.

Independent expenditures supporting Steyer’s bid have been minimal compared with the record-breaking $212 million Steyer has donated to his own campaign as of Monday. Still. more than $1.4 million of outside money has been spent supporting his bid. largely by the California Nurses Assn. which shares his goal of creating single-payer healthcare.

Other prominent spending flows are tied to former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin). Expenditure committees linked to Uber, the California Medical Assn., the kidney dialysis company DaVita and the California Dental Assn. contributed nearly $7.3 million to independent efforts backing Swalwell before he dropped out of the gubernatorial race in April because of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.

Donors then shifted their energy toward Xavier Becerra. who had struggled to connect with California voters before he surged to become a front-runner. according to recent opinion polls. More than $13 million has been contributed to outside groups backing the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.

In the race for Mahan. a moderate Democrat. outside groups backing him spent $21.7 million. while $570. 000 was spent by independent committees opposing him. according to the Target Book. Among the donors are venture capitalists Michael Moritz and L. John Doerr, Stripe Chief Executive Patrick Collinson and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. Other notable donors include billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso. who unsuccessfully ran for Los Angeles mayor in 2022. and Griff Harsh V. the son of billionaire Meg Whitman—an unsuccessful 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee turned Democrat who once led eBay.

Even with that support, Mahan has remained mired in the single digits in the polls. On Wednesday. billionaire Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings received a refund of $1 million he had donated to one of the independent expenditure committees supporting Mahan’s bid. Hastings said he had not requested the money to be returned to him. In a post on X on Saturday, he said, “I’m voting for Matt Mahan. I didn’t ask for any refund and they shouldn’t have done it. Go Matt.”.

Matt Rodriguez. a spokesman for the Back to Basics committee backing Mahan. said he believes Mahan’s standing reflects several factors: an underwhelming contest. Mahan’s January entry into the race. and the fact that he was not well known statewide. Rodriguez said Mahan “got in a little bit late and it was a big climb … with an apathetic electorate. ” adding that “Politics is all about money and timing — both the amount of time and being there at the right time.”.

Rodriguez said Mahan’s priorities—such as housing and homelessness improvements he oversaw in San José—also played a role in the campaign, and he said Democrats “have to perform” and, if they are going to perform, they have to have results.

Republican Steve Hilton. endorsed by Trump and the leading GOP candidate. is the only other candidate who saw seven figures in independent expenditure spending. More than $1.8 million has been spent opposing Hilton, and $13,750 was spent supporting him. The union SEIU California donated $250,000 to opposing gubernatorial candidates. Oscar Lopez. the union’s political director. said it has opposed Hilton. Mahan and Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. arguing that each represents “a serious threat to the wages. rights and dignity of California’s working people.”.

Hilton responded by saying the spending against him represents Democratic recognition of him as a threat. In an interview. Hilton said Democrats understand they are vulnerable because of weak candidates and a “terrible record. ” and that the only argument Democrats have is to endlessly repeat the words Trump and MAGA.

The growth in outside spending is not a surprise—it’s baked into the rules that shaped modern political money.

Outside spending has grown exponentially after a voter-approved 2000 California ballot measure limited how much donors can contribute directly to candidates. For the current election, the limit is $78,400 for the primary and the general election in the governor’s race. Donors can still contribute unlimited amounts to outside groups called independent expenditure committees. Though donations were already legal in California. they expanded widely in the state and across the nation after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision held that limits on independent political spending by corporations. unions and other entities violated First Amendment free speech protections.

Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA, said, “It has been a steady increase in the amount of money going to outside groups.”

California set earlier records too. In 2010. independent expenditure groups spent about $25 million supporting then-gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown—largely union money—and it was spent in the summer after the primary. The spending was viewed as critical to stalling self-funding Republican billionaire Meg Whitman’s campaign. Brown ultimately won the race by 13 percentage points.

In the 2018 gubernatorial primary, more than $26 million of outside spending broke records again, with former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as the biggest beneficiary. Charter school backers spent nearly $16 million on unsuccessful efforts to boost his campaign.

The ability for outside groups to air sharp attacks without taking direct blame has also become central. Thad Kousser. a political science professor at UC San Diego. said independent expenditure committees are “as free to go as negative as they want without that negativity boomeranging back to hurt the candidate.”.

Rules forbidding communication are often skirted with methods described as legal but unmistakably coordinated in spirit. One example is “red boxing. ” which Becerra employed earlier this year. placing messages inside red-lined boxes on candidate websites that campaign strategists would like outside groups to highlight.

Hasen said there are technical rules preventing certain types of communication, but “it’s easy enough to communicate in public and be on the same page on messaging.”

Among major donors in the 2026 campaign are the California Chamber of Commerce, PG&E, the California Assn. of Realtors. the Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition PAC. the Pechanga Band of Indians. the California Nurses Assn. and corporations and leaders or founders of companies such as Meta. Google and Uber.

Californians for the People. an outside committee that has spent nearly $32.3 million opposing Steyer. is the most well-funded independent expenditure committee this year. Among its largest donors is JOBSPAC. a group sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce. which has donated nearly $11.8 million to the effort. John Myers. a spokesman for the chamber. said the CalChamber is participating in an independent expenditure campaign because voters deserve to know more about Steyer. and said his policy promises will cost billions. driving investment out of California and worsening the state’s affordability crisis.

The Pechanga Band of Indians has spent $1.5 million on pro-Becerra efforts. Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro said Secretary Becerra has stood with Indian Country for decades and understands Tribal sovereignty. Macarro said when tribal healthcare was on the line. he was there. and that the experience comes from a lifetime of public service. not a checkbook.

California governor’s race independent expenditure committees dark money Chevron Xavier Becerra Tom Steyer Matt Mahan June 2 primary PG&E California Chamber of Commerce