Our Revolution, the progressive political organization founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, endorsed billionaire Tom Steyer for governor of California this week, the first time the avowedly anti-billionaire group has ever thrown its weight behind a candidate with a ten-figure fortune.
The move drew immediate ridicule from critics on both the right and within progressive circles, and it raises a straightforward question: What, exactly, does the populist left stand for when its flagship organization backs a man worth an estimated $2.4 billion?
Our Revolution has built its brand on opposing the influence of the wealthy in American politics. Its executive director, Joseph Geevarghese, defended the endorsement in a statement that tried to thread a very small needle. As the New York Post reported, Geevarghese said Steyer has "taken a different path, challenging the very system that benefits people like him."
The group's website offered its own justification:
"Yes, Tom Steyer is a billionaire. But it matters what he is doing with that power."
That line might have landed differently if Steyer's campaign were funded by small-dollar donors. It wasn't.
Fox News reported that Steyer has spent roughly $120 million of his own money on his gubernatorial campaign. State filings show he raised about $161,485 from individual donors, meaning less than one percent of his campaign funds came from anyone other than himself.
Let that sink in. Our Revolution's stated platform centers on "eliminating corporate and billionaire influence in politics and supporting candidates who vow to get big money out of politics." The candidate they just endorsed is running almost entirely on his personal fortune.
Sanders himself has long railed against the existence of billionaires. He has called Steyer a "friend," but has also said he is not a "fan of billionaires getting involved" in politics. His organization apparently decided the friendship outweighs the principle.
Steyer has branded himself as a champion of the state's proposed billionaire tax, single-payer health care, and making companies pay for pollution. His tax returns tell a different story about his financial life. In 2021, Steyer earned $67 million from U.S.-based private equity funds offered by Hellman & Friedman and Golden Gate Capital.
Private equity, the industry progressives routinely accuse of stripping companies for parts and hollowing out working-class communities, was the source of a massive chunk of Steyer's income. His investment firm, Galvanize Climate Solutions, reportedly held around $1 million based in the Cayman Islands, a jurisdiction that exists in progressive rhetoric mainly as a symbol of offshore tax avoidance.
The contradictions are not new, and Steyer has acknowledged them before. At a 2020 campaign stop in New Hampshire, he offered a disarming shrug:
"I get that it's ironic. It's ironic to me, too. We live in the world. Not in the world we dream of. We live in the world we're in."
That kind of candor is rare in politics. But candor about a contradiction does not resolve it. The question is whether Our Revolution's voters signed up to support a billionaire who admits the irony of his own candidacy, or whether they signed up because Sanders told them billionaires should not exist.
The internal tensions inside the Democratic Party run far deeper than one California endorsement. Democratic Senate candidates have struggled even to say whether they would back Chuck Schumer as leader, reflecting a party that cannot agree on its own power structure, let alone its principles.
Investor Spencer Camp posted on X, cutting straight to the point:
"How does the anti-billionaire group get away with endorsing a billionaire for California governor?"
Republican strategist Steve Guest was more concise. He called the endorsement "beyond parody."
Neither reaction is surprising. What is more telling is the silence from progressive quarters that might have been expected to object. Sanders, who carries a net worth of roughly $2.5 million, modest by Senate standards but a far cry from his early-career persona, has not publicly distanced himself from the endorsement.
Steyer, for his part, welcomed the nod warmly:
"Our Revolution has done the hard, essential work of organizing and empowering progressive voters for a decade. I'm honored to receive this endorsement."
The honor, one suspects, flows in both directions. Our Revolution gets to attach itself to a well-funded frontrunner. Steyer gets a populist stamp of approval that no amount of personal spending could buy on its own.
Steyer is one of the top-polling Democrats in the race. A new California Democratic Party poll showed him tied at 13 percent with Xavier Becerra, described as a dark horse candidate. The methodology, sample size, and field dates of that poll have not been disclosed publicly.
California's open gubernatorial contest has drawn wide interest. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has used his platform to position himself for a potential 2028 presidential run, is termed out, leaving a vacuum that both establishment and outsider Democrats are rushing to fill.
Steyer's wealth gives him a structural advantage that no grassroots endorsement can offset. When 99 percent of your campaign treasury comes from your own bank account, the endorsement of a populist organization is window dressing. It may help with progressive primary voters. It does nothing to change the fundamental dynamic: this is a billionaire's campaign, funded by a billionaire, for a billionaire's benefit.
The pattern of candidates and organizations saying one thing while doing another is hardly unique to the left. But it is especially glaring when the organization's entire reason for existing is opposition to the very kind of wealth its endorsed candidate represents. It calls to mind other recent cases where campaign credibility has collided with the candidate's actual financial arrangements.
Our Revolution was born out of Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, which electrified young voters by promising to break the grip of the billionaire class on American democracy. A decade later, the organization has endorsed a member of that class, and asked its supporters to trust that this particular billionaire is different.
The justification boils down to: he agrees with us on policy, so the money doesn't matter. That is a reasonable argument for a conventional political party. It is a devastating one for a movement that defined itself by insisting the money always matters.
The broader Democratic coalition continues to fracture over questions of identity and power. Some Democrats are pledging to reject their own party leadership entirely, while others quietly accommodate the very forces they once claimed to oppose. Our Revolution's Steyer endorsement fits neatly into the second category.
Steyer acknowledged the irony himself. He just asked voters to look past it. Our Revolution apparently did. Whether California's progressive voters will is another matter.
When your whole brand is that billionaires have too much power, endorsing one for the state's highest office doesn't show flexibility. It shows the brand was always negotiable.