Silicon Valley bet big on Matt Mahan for governor. It didn't pay off

SAN JOSE, Calif. - San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan entered the California governor's race in late January as Silicon Valley's disruptive bet: a young centrist Democrat, backed by influential tech leaders, promising to bring accountability and measurable results to Sacramento. Four months later, that experiment collapsed.

What went wrong? Some political experts blame Mahan's late entry that didn't give him enough runway to connect with voters and build his name outside the Bay Area, while others point to the messaging. Internal disagreements over strategy, including the role of tech donors, also emerged as a key reason Mahan failed to take off.

Signs of cracks in the Mahan campaign began to show in April when the campaign severed ties with one of its top consultants, Eric Jaye.

Mahan, a 43-year-old centrist Democrat, had been mayor of California's third-largest city for just 3 1/2 years after entering politics as a city councilmember in 2020. He touted his record in San Jose, including what he described as progress on homelessness and housing approvals. The race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom was crowded, but also largely unsettled as a frontrunner struggled to emerge. Mahan brought to the race what he thought his opponents didn't: a "clear and compelling" vision for California.

With his close ties to Silicon Valley's wealthy tech community from his own days as an entrepreneur, Mahan also had the financial support insiders believed was enough to make him competitive in such a short campaign. Donors to his campaign, as well as to the outside groups backing him, included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, real estate mogul Rick Caruso and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan.

But the money, outpaced only by billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer's self-funding, was not enough. Nor was Mahan's message that Democrats needed to deliver better results. Even in Santa Clara County, his home base, the latest unofficial results Friday had him in fourth.

Political experts said Mahan always faced a steep climb. Despite leading a city of nearly 1 million residents, no San Jose mayor has gone on to become California governor or U.S. senator, a reflection of how often the city has been overshadowed politically by San Francisco. A four-month campaign to get the attention of more than 20 million voters - many of whom were outside the Bay Area - would also be difficult.

"The late entry was a virtual death knell," said Larry Gerston, a professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University. "In this state particularly, where it's so populated and there are so many characters of notoriety, you just can't jump in. I think that was the most important reason he was not in the first tier."

Veteran strategist Mike Madrid, who helped run Democratic former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's 2018 gubernatorial campaign, said the timing of Mahan's message also didn't fit the current political moment in which many Democratic voters view President Donald Trump as the party's central threat.

"Timing is everything in a campaign, and the timing for his message could not have been worse," Madrid said. "People do not want to hear that the house has a cracked foundation when the house is on fire. What he's saying is in the Trump era, when Trump is the main threat in the minds of Democrats, he's saying the Democratic Party is the problem."

Democratic strategist Garry South, who has run several past gubernatorial campaigns, said that Mahan casting himself as the "chief critic of the sitting Democratic governor" likely didn't play well with many voters because Newsom remains popular within the party.

But Mahan spokesperson Tasha Dean defended the campaign in a statement, arguing that the mayor went from a candidate not known statewide to "essentially tied for third among Democrats." Mahan trailed former Rep. Katie Porter by roughly 30,000 votes Friday afternoon in fourth place among Democrats and sixth place overall.

"Matt put San Jose's people and progress on the map - raising the city's profile statewide and nationally as a model for success on seemingly intractable issues," she said. "He will continue to make life better for the people he represents - both by doing better in San Jose and demanding better from Sacramento."

Jaye, a veteran Democratic strategist who ran Newsom's San Francisco mayoral campaign, called Mahan's bid a "missed opportunity to elevate a young leader with an impressive record of embracing common-sense reforms."

In an email, he said that a "donor coup" took control of the campaign at a time when Mahan was "leading in the attention economy by focusing on bold ideas that openly challenged political orthodoxy."

In response to questions about Jaye's comments, Dean said in a statement that "unfortunately, no consultant likes to be replaced during a campaign."

Jaye wanted to hold off on pushing out expensive ads until ballots landed in mailboxes and voters were paying more attention. But his vision conflicted with what many in Mahan's inner circle believed was the correct strategy: they needed to communicate early and aggressively if he had a shot at building a statewide profile, according to a source familiar with the campaign.

Jaye argued that the big spend on ads after his departure "drove (Mahan) down in the polls" as his message shifted and his backers "made him sound like every other politician and look like another tech bro."

Jaye characterized the campaign as going "dark" three weeks before the election when they were unable to attract more tech donors. A source familiar with the campaign confirmed the disagreement over strategy but disputed that the campaign went dark, while recognizing that spending levels dropped.

"The early days of Mahan's campaign were about issues - about being a vocal and visible change agent who could reshape the California Democratic Party," Jaye said. "After the campaign was taken over by donors, the political consultant cartel, and young staffers, it was attempting to walk a tightrope between pleasing billionaire benefactors without also displeasing entrenched Sacramento interest groups. It is predictable they tumbled to Earth."

Politico reported in May that some of Mahan's Silicon Valley backers wanted to see results in polling before committing more of the money the campaign said it would need to succeed, much as they do with funding startups.

Others argued Silicon Valley backing was itself a double-edged sword, giving critics an opening to paint him as a tool of billionaire technology interests. Billionaire Democratic rival Steyer, currently in third place and whose wealth was constantly raised by his rivals who questioned his progressive bona fides, noted in debates while looking at Mahan that while he was the only billionaire on the stage, he wasn't the only one in the race.

"He became a vessel for this fever dream of the Silicon Valley crowd," Madrid, the strategist, said. "There was never any poll that said he was ever going to get more than 7%. I think (his backers) believed they could buy their way out of it."

While Tuesday night marked the end of the 2026 Mahan gubernatorial campaign, the mayor told supporters who gathered at San Pedro Square Market on election night that he wasn't ruling out a future run.

"Please don't think tonight is the last time I'm going to ask you to come together to fight for a better California," he said.

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This story was originally published June 7, 2026 at 10:34 AM.