Tom Steyer hopes to fool California voters

Tom Steyer may be one of the greatest hypocrites in American politics — and that’s quite an achievement.

His main problem is that when voters look more closely, they see right through him.

That’s what happened when he ran for president in 2020. He collapsed in South Carolina, where the majority of the Democratic Party primary electorate is black.

Though Steyer hired black political consultants, and shared a stage with rappers, and spent millions to dominate the airwaves, Steyer came in a distant third, with just 11.3% of the vote.

(His only consolation was that he finished ahead of Pete Buttigieg, who had his own trouble with black voters, not just in South Carolina but in his home town of South Bend, Indiana.)

Steyer ran for president after passing up the chance to run for California governor in 2018. By then, he had already become one of the biggest donors to the Democrats.

His big issue was climate change. 

In 2014, Steyer — or, rather, Steyer’s money — convinced Democrats to stage a fake filibuster on the Senate floor, protesting climate change all night long. 

The irony: Steyer made his fortune in fossil fuels.

“Steyer, the former CEO of the Farallon investment firm, made much of his fortune from the coal, oil, and gas industries that he now targets,” noted City Journal in 2014.

Steyer says he has seen the light. With the zeal of the converted, he blames fossil fuels for everything. 

Recently, Steyer even recycled an old Gavin Newsom tactic, blaming oil companies for “profiteering off” the Iran war.

Slight problem: There has never been any evidence that oil companies have exploited the war. And the reality is that California’s gas prices are higher than the rest of the country’s because of the very same “green” policies that Steyer pushes.

Special blends, gas taxes, “cap-and-trade” — whoops, “cap-and-invest” — plus restrictions on local drilling. It’s a formula for higher prices, and for dependence on foreign oil — shipped in from dirtier and more dangerous places, burning carbon all the way.

Steyer also has struggled with a new problem: his investment in private prisons.

That wasn’t a big issue when he ran for president, but the Black Lives Matter movement has since put it on his party’s radar.

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Worse, one of the companies Steyer invested in now runs the state’s largest immigration detention center. 

That’s deadly for any Democrat in California in 2026.

So what does Steyer do?

You guessed it: He promises to abolish ICE.

That’s the pattern with the billionaire-turned-populist. He preaches the opposite of what he has practiced.

In a year when California Democrats are targeting the rich, chasing other billionaires away, Steyer has decided that a 5% wealth tax is just the beginning.

Perhaps he is gaining some traction. A recent poll showed Steyer leading the field — albeit with just 21% of the vote — even before Eric Swalwell’s epic implosion.

But that’s also a function of millions of dollars in advertising.

California voters may be liberal, but they’re not gullible. Not for long.