Impeachment Donor Tom Steyer Gives $12 Million to Newsom's Gerrymander

Billionaire Tom Steyer has donated $12 million to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) gerrymandering effort, after a failed presidential run and an effort to push the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Steyer crashed out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in 2020 after a dismal showing in South Carolina, where he was rejected by a predominantly black electorate. His lavish campaign came on the heels of massive spending on his Need to Impeach movement, which urged Democrats to impeach Trump. He also funded climate change campaigns — ironically, since he made his fortune partly from fossil fuel investments.

Now, Steyer — who has not donated, at least publicly, to help tens of thousands of fire victims in California — has shelled out to support Newsom’s Proposition 50, joining George Soros and other Democrat megadonors.

His new ad, part of a campaign called “Stick It to Trump,” features a Trump impersonator throwing a tantrum in a mock White House while watching news of the success of Proposition 50 in California.

That, according to Politico, has fueled speculation that Steyer intends to run for California governor, after the meltdown suffered by former Rep. Katie Porter during a routine CBS News interview earlier this week:

The longtime megadonor and onetime presidential candidate sprang off the political sidelines and into a swirl of speculation on Thursday by announcing a massive ad buy in support of Proposition 50, Democrats’ ballot initiative to gerrymander California’s House maps. Steyer’s foray instantly prompted chatter about his potential interest in a still-fluid 2026 governor’s race that has been jolted by frontrunner Katie Porter’s dismal week.

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It wouldn’t be the first time Steyer poured millions of dollars into ballot measure campaigns while weighing a statewide run — though his previous flirtations never went anywhere. Now, with California’s governor race looking ripe for a reset, political insiders are once again watching for Steyer to deploy his fortune to shake up a marquee race.

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“Tom launched the ‘Stick it to Trump’ campaign because he has always stood up to Donald Trump,” Steyer spokesperson Kevin Liao said in a statement. “He launched the Need to Impeach campaign in 2017 long before Democrats in D.C. acted on impeachment, and he’s strongly backing Prop 50 now because he knows it’s our best shot at stopping Trump’s power grab in Congress.”

While Proposition 50 still faces challenges in the courts, it would, if successful, override citizens and give politicians the power to redraw the state’s congressional map. A recent poll suggested that the measure would pass, thanks to Newsom’s effort to portray the measure as a chance for Democrats to oppose Trump, and to ignore the fact that it overrides the independent redistricting commission voters put in the state constitution.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Impeachment Donor Tom Steyer Gives $12 Million to Newsom’s Gerrymander

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