MAHAN, matt mayor
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LATE IN 2026 JUNGLE PRIMARY
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...Mahan fizzles out
The second-highest outside spending went to boost Mahan, the San Jose mayor and moderate Democrat who entered the race late to much fanfare from Silicon Valley.
California’s tech billionaires urged Mahan to run and backed him with millions in donations and two independent spending committees. They were enamored with his platform of government efficiency and opposition to new taxes — positions that would shield them from the Legislature’s push to regulate tech and raise taxes on the wealthy.
Donors included venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Brian Singerman, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Intuit founder Scott Cook, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Los Angeles developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso.
The committees spent nearly $22 million on ads supporting Mahan, significantly more than the $9 million his campaign has spent. But the money wasn’t enough to overcome his significant disadvantage in name recognition as the first-term mayor of a city that doesn’t get much attention. Strategists told the committees’ backers they needed at least $45 million to make a difference.
One of the PACs, California Back to Basics, last week returned $1 million from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; Hastings cryptically posted on X that he hadn’t asked for the money back. The refund was an acknowledgement that the committee hadn’t succeeded in raking in a final $10 to $15 million the billionaire backers hoped to raise in the last weeks of the campaign, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said.
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MURKY BRIN?
Who’s funding Mayor Mahan’s gubernatorial campaign? New filings point to tech titans and billionaires
New campaign filings reveal that $2.1 million of Mahan’s recent fundraising haul came from 47 donors with deep pockets
By Grace Hase | ghase@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: February 11, 2026 at 4:30 PM PST | UPDATED: February 12, 2026
For San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan to compete as a late entrant in the race for California governor, political experts said he needed to raise money fast. And he did — pulling in $7 million in donations in his first week, with more than $2 million coming from some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest executives and investors....
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