Progressive Democrats will rant and rave about how billionaires are buying elections. The fact that voters keep rejecting Tom Steyer should put an end to that belief, as well as Steyer’s belief that anyone wants to see him run anything.
On Tuesday, Steyer conceded that he would not be advancing to the top two runoff in the California governor’s race. Steyer did his best to buy his way into the hearts of voters, flooding the airwaves with ads promoting himself and attacking rival Democrats such as former Rep. Eric Swalwell and former state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Steyer spent $213 million of his own money on his campaign, and the best he got was consistently polling in the top three or four of the field, only to fall short of Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton. With around 91% of the vote counted, Steyer sits at just 22.5%.
ANTI-ICE BILLIONAIRE TOM STEYER WANTS TO MAKE CALIFORNIA EVEN MORE UNAFFORDABLE
This is the second big failure for Steyer’s political career. You may recall that he was one of the million Democrats who ran in the crowded 2020 field, where he spent more than $300 million of his own money to finish tied for last place with zero delegates. His best finish was a distant third in the South Carolina primary, where he won just 11% of the vote. In terms of overall votes received, Steyer finished eighth, behind even Tulsi Gabbard.
TOM STEYER: THE ANTI-BILLIONAIRE MOVEMENT’S FAVORITE BILLIONAIRE
Now that even voters in progressive California have rejected Steyer, it should be obvious that people simply do not want to elect him. They do not care that he is supposedly one of the “good” billionaires. They did not buy his presidential message that climate change will kill us all unless taxes go up, and they did not buy his gubernatorial message that oil companies are the true threat facing California. Steyer has now spent more than half a billion dollars of his own money to learn, twice, that voters just do not like him.
There is a nice irony here: Steyer’s most natural constituency is the same progressive movement that insists billionaires are evil and elections are for sale. Steyer is a billionaire, supposedly one of the acceptable ones, and he has now failed twice to buy support from the broader electorate. He has burned more than $550 million to accomplish nothing. Neither he nor his left-wing admirers seems likely to learn anything from it.