In the closely watched governor’s race, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who received millions from top tech executives, conceded only minutes after polls closed.
Tech entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal, whose bid to oust long-time Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and represent Silicon Valley in Congress won the backing of tech executives including DoorDash co-founder Stanley Tang and Y Combinator chief executive Garry Tan, also looks to be headed for a double-digit loss.
Read more: How Does California’s ‘Jungle Primary’ Work?
And Big Tech donors’ favored candidates are also staying alive in some down-ballot races. Cerritos City Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Mark Pulido and Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem David Penaloza, who are running for State Assembly seats, each received donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the super PAC Grow California, which is funded largely by Larsen and venture capital investor Tim Draper. Pulido’s bid also received almost a quarter of a million dollars from the super PAC California Leads, to which Meta and Google each contributed $5 million. Though votes are still being counted in both primaries, both Pulido and Penaloza currently appear on track to advance to the general election, per California’s unofficial election results tracker.
Political experts tell TIME that the mixed success of the tech-favored candidates in the primaries shows that such backing is not enough in itself to put a campaign over the top.
Money alone cannot win big-ticket races, Neil Malhotra, a professor of political economy at Stanford University’s Business School, tells TIME—and the appearance that candidates are tied to Big Tech may actually hurt their cases in some ways.
“If there's an underlying, unpopular candidate, the media is not gonna help at all, and that's why earned media is considered a better signal,” Malhotra says. “The reason you go viral is that you have a message that resonates.”
“Sometimes when people think of the tech industry broadly, they have negative views on it,” he says.
“I think the lesson a lot of California Democrats get is that actually being tech-aligned—at least overtly so—may not be that electorally beneficial,” Malhotra says.
The future of Big Tech in politics
Despite the losses of tech-backed candidates in some high-profile races in California’s primaries, Kousser stresses that tech figures play, and will continue to play, an integral role in all aspects of the state’s politics, specifically when it comes to those surrounding AI and data center regulation.
A report from the nonprofit Issue One, which seeks to limit the role that money plays in politics, found that based on federal lobbying reports Big Tech companies spent roughly $20 million on congressional lobbying in the first three months of this year, amounting to $226,000 per day. In California, meanwhile, a CalMatters analysis found that major companies specializing in AI and crypto spent more than $39 million in their efforts to influence state politics last year, including campaign contributions, lobbying, and donations made at the requests of lawmakers.
Regardless of what happens in this year’s elections, Kousser contends that tech leaders will continue to try to sway elected officials and maintain influence over their industry––“even if the tech-candidate for governor didn't succeed.”
“Because tech is the industry of California, tech is going to ensure that they're tied to every politician who gains office,” he says.
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