Earlier this year, we published a breakdown of fundraising in the governor's race, looking at total raised, the geography of donors, and which candidates have been propelled by small donors versus those who are mostly self-funded.
Now that we have campaign finance data through April 18th — the most recent filing period cutoff — our updated numbers are below.
Unsurprisingly, Tom Steyer comes in first, with more than $143m raised into his campaign, nearly all of it from his own wallet.
Among the rest of the candidates, Mahan's Silicon Valley money has pushed him to #2 on the list. While Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco were putting up similar fundraising numbers at the start of the campaign, Hilton has clearly pulled ahead and has now raised nearly twice as much as Bianco, further solidifying his position as the likely Republican frontrunner following this month's endorsement from President Trump.
Earlier this year, Katie Porter led the field in unique itemized donors, but she has since been surpassed by Steve Hilton. This could be due in part to Porter's campaign losing some momentum, or it could be the result of Hilton's increased notoriety among the base — not just in California but in other parts of the country as well.
As for the geographic breakdown, there isn't much surprise here. Becerra, Porter, and Hilton all have more national profiles, due to either time spent in Congress or as a Fox News contributor, and thus have drawn in more money from outside the state.
That's not so much the case with the other candidates, whose political careers have been primarily confined to California. The exception is Tom Steyer, who did unsuccessfully run for president in 2020, so it's a little surprising he's been unable to build upon whatever donor apparatus he may (or evidently may not) have built during his prior run.
At The Ballot Book, we can calculate how much money a candidate actually has remaining to spend in the primary. This is done by taking their most recent cash on hand, adding any 497 late filings, and then removing any donations above the primary limit (since those funds must be saved for the general election).
Based on those metrics, Steyer remains well in the lead, but his $17m is only a small percentage of the nine figures he's already spent — and it's likely he's seeing severe declining marginal returns on each additional dollar spent at this point.
(Note: Despite Antonio Villaraigosa having around $1.2m cash on hand, the entirety of it is essentially from donors who have already maxed out for the primary, meaning those funds can only be spent in the general election should he advance.)
If we plug these figures into Paul Mitchell's TWINS model, we get the following result:
Steyer is likely getting a boost from the additional $17m, but as mentioned previously, I do think each additional dollar he spends is less impactful than each additional dollar spent by the other candidates.