As Tom Steyer rallied for support in Monterey Park on Wednesday, attendees, Carlos Eduardo Espina, Caroline Menjivar and Steyer himself defended supporting a billionaire to be the next governor of California.
“I built a business over 27 years, I walked away from it 14 years ago and I’ve been taking on special interests in the state of California, corporate special interests and beating them for the last 14 years,” Steyer said at the offset of his remarks.
Steyer, whose estimated net worth is currently $2.4 billion, founded and managed Farallon Capitol, a hedge fund that invested in coal, fossil fuels and a company that operates private prisons and an ICE detention facility in California.
Steyer has spent over $132 million on his gubernatorial campaign thus far, including more than $122 million of his own money.
Espina said he first heard about Steyer through Congressman Ro Khanna and was surprised by Khanna’s support for the candidate.
“At first I was like, OK this is weird right, because he’s endorsing a billionaire, why is this?” Espina said. “So I called him I was like ‘hey what is going on with Tom Steyer?’ he’s like ‘hey you should really give this guy a look, he’s a good guy, you know, he’s fighting for the right causes and you’re gonna see a lot of progressive organizations, a lot of labor unions are gonna come around and support him.’”
Espina was listed as the event’s special guest as part of Steyer’s “A California You Can Afford” bus tour.
The event was dubbed an “East LA Block Party” and a campaign official told Annenberg Media that nearly 400 people attended.
Angelica Vielma, an attendee, said that although Steyer is a billionaire, she sees him as the most progressive candidate in the race.
“I’m obviously a little hesitant to vote for a billionaire, but I feel like his track record in terms of the causes that he’s championed over the past decades including supporting climate advocacy, the community bank he and his wife started, taking the pledge to give away his wealth, shows to me that he takes these causes seriously,” Vielma said.
Sonaar Luthra, another attendee, also said that he thinks Steyer is the most progressive and he’s looking at his policies, not his wealth.
“I’m far more concerned about the influence that certain other candidates have from their donors and I do not have those concerns here,” Luthra said.
California State Senator Caroline Menjivar said she has never supported a billionaire, but Steyer is different.
“I can’t take away from the fact that those are true that he did invest in X, Y and Z and pulled out of those companies,” Menjivar told Annenberg Media.
She compared Steyer to wealthy progressive donors who financially support left-leaning causes and candidates.
“There’s the California Donor Table, which is an organization made up of really rich people that pool their money to elect progressive people,” Menjivar said. “We’re not bashing them because they’re billionaires. These are the people that use their money for good and he has shown time and time again from supporting so many ballot measures that are for progressive issues that he’s on that side.”
Menjivar questioned why corporations are not supporting Steyer if he was “this bad billionaire.”
“Let’s look at President Trump, he had every single tech bro, every single corporation lining aside with him because he knew that he was going to give them a tax break,” Menjivar said. “You don’t see that in this situation.”