The Left’s California Problem

If progressives hit a wall this week in Wisconsin, it could be nothing compared to the obstacles they face in California.

Not only has a November ballot measure to tax billionaires — seemingly tailor-made to channel economic discontent and anti-Trump animus — divided Democrats and drawn fierce opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom and much of the Democratic establishment, even national progressive leaders have yet to fully embrace the fight.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has endorsed the wealth tax, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren declined to take a position, telling POLITICO, “I understand the states are looking for their alternatives for how to make this happen. We need to do it at the federal level.” Warren’s deferring to a national standard echoed Newsom’s position.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has yet to weigh in, despite a direct appeal from the measure’s champion at a POLITICO event this week. Even Tom Steyer, the billionaire progressive megadonor who called the tax “better than nothing,” told POLITICO he does not plan to spend money supporting it.

“It's addressing the problem, but in a way that we can do a much better job on,” said Steyer, who instead called for overhauling the state’s property-tax system in his unsuccessful bid for governor — a campaign supported by many progressives who bemoaned a lack of other viable liberal contenders.

The resistance is striking in a state once considered a beating heart of progressive politics, and at a moment when the populist left has been ascendant in Democratic contests from New York City to Colorado to Michigan. And for progressives, it could get even worse. Polling suggests support in California for a measure to require voter ID — one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities — and they are battling another initiative to make local tax measures harder to pass.

“You have a lot of Democrats that are sick of Democrats on homelessness, on crime, on schools that don’t work, on a bloated bureaucracy,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a moderate-leaning Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor this year.

The left faces some structural disadvantages in California. The state’s sheer size and expensive media markets have traditionally favored business-aligned Democrats that win the financial backing of major industries like tech, real estate and healthcare.

But Steyer spent more than $200 million running for governor this year, only to stumble alongside liberal firebrand Katie Porter. Instead, it was a moderate, Xavier Becerra, who advanced from the state’s June primary. Meanwhile, a host of other progressive candidates for statewide and legislative office faltered after tech- and business-aligned megadonors drowned them in a torrent of negative ads.

It’s a trend that emanates from the state’s most famously liberal city. While New York City has Zohran Mamdani as a standardbearer for the left, San Francisco is led by Daniel Lurie, an heir to the billion-dollar Levi Strauss fortune and a moderate Democrat who avoids referencing Donald Trump’s name in public. Lurie, with a sky-high public approval rating, recently rallied voters to defeat a ballot measure to raise taxes on large corporations with “overpaid CEOs.”

No other issue has illustrated California’s opposite approach quite like the proposed tax on the assets of billionaires, which has fractured Democrats into factions that echo their larger party’s struggle over economic policy. Leading Democrats like Newsom and Becerra, along with influential health care groups and labor unions, have opposed the measure on the grounds it could undercut the state’s finances and disproportionately benefit one union.

The measure has picked up significant support lately with endorsements from the California Labor Federation and the California Democratic Party, whose left-leaning activists are often a barometer of the base’s politics.

Dave Regan, the wealth tax’s chief proponent and president of the powerful health care labor union SEIU-UHW, argued at a POLITICO event in Sacramento this week that the initiative has momentum, saying it aligns with what Democratic voters want: “This issue is not going away. I believe, and a lot of other people believe, it is now inevitable.”

And some left-leaning candidates have had success in California, making inroads in a pair of House races in the Central Valley and Sacramento County. Mai Vang has ridden a younger generation’s frustration with long-serving incumbents in her bid to oust Rep. Doris Matsui, and Randy Villegas bested a DCCC-backed moderate to secure a matchup with Rep. David Valadao in a seat where centrist Democrats have repeatedly lost.

The chair of the California Democratic Party’s progressive caucus, Neel Sannappa, pointed to downballot races like those as evidence of the movement’s momentum in California. Beyond Vang and Villegas, former California Working Families Party head Jane Kim won a plurality in the state insurance commissioner primary, while in Los Angeles, progressive mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman and City Council candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America had success.

But Sannappa acknowledged the limitations of the movement here, pointing to their lack of a successful standard-bearer in the governor’s race.

“I really don’t feel as though we had somebody who was carrying the Bernie mantle or was the equivalent of Mamdani in the race,” Sannappa said. “The outside perspective of California is that it’s this true-blue bastion of progressivism. But we know that’s not necessarily true.”

Kelsey Brugger and Alex Nieves contributed to this report.