Early Obama booster drops millions into California’s lieutenant governor race
A San Francisco donor and an early supporter of Barack Obama is making waves in California’s lieutenant governor’s race. He’s so far spent more than $5.7 million boosting former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs.
Writer Steve Phillips’ investments in the race dwarfs spending by any other single donor. And they’ve included sharp attacks against another Democrat, State Treasurer Fiona Ma, over sexual harassment accusations.
The spending could have a meaningful impact in the splintered field. Another leading Democrat, Josh Fryday, serves as Gov. Newsom’s chief service officer, overseeing state volunteer programs, and is running ads featuring Newsom’s endorsement. Ma has a long history in California politics and backing from a number of unions and elected officials, while Tubbs made waves as the youngest mayor of a large U.S. city when he was elected to lead Stockton in 2017 at age 26.
The race also includes two Republicans who’ve registered in internal polls conducted by the campaigns: former state Sen. Gloria Romero and entrepreneur David Fennell.
Only two candidates, regardless of their party, will advance from the primary to the general election.
Betting big on young Democrats
Phillips, host of the Democracy in Color podcast and author of several books focused on racial justice, said his spending supporting Tubbs is in line with contributions he and his late wife, Susan Sandler, made to boost what he described as young social justice leaders. He said he’d met Tubbs when he was still a student at Stanford and remained close to him in the years since. Tubbs has described Phillips as a mentor.
“I really see this as a 20- to 30-year play,” Phillips said in an interview with The Bee. He said he envisioned Tubbs eventually running for governor and even president.
Phillips said the couple and their allies spent $10 million boosting Obama in the 2008 presidential primary. They set up the first pro-Obama independent campaign committee in 2007, part of a wave of new forms of outside spending in the race. The couple were also early backers of Kamala Harris in her 2010 campaign for California attorney general and Stacy Abrams in the 2018 Georgia Senate primary.
One of the independent committees heavily funded by Phillips, Friends of Michael Tubbs, spent $4.7 million from April 19 to May — more than six times the amount spent by Tubbs’ campaign, which can’t directly coordinate with the Phillips’ effort. Most of the spending is on ads intended to introduce voters to Tubbs, who may be best known nationally for driving an experiment giving select Stockton residents universal basic income.
Committee attacks Ma for sexual harassment settlement
Another committee that is almost entirely funded by Phillips, Taxpayers Against Sexual Harassment by Government Officials, is using a website and text message blasts to resurface 2021 sexual harassment accusations from Ma’s former employee, Judith Blackwell. In 2024, the state agreed to a $350,000 settlement over Blackwell’s claims that as treasurer, Ma exposed herself and forced herself into Blackwell’s bed when they traveled together. Blackwell also sued Ma as an individual, but later dropped that portion of her lawsuit.
Ma has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called the settlement a “vindication.”
The legal proceedings leading up to the settlement suggest a more nuanced situation. Ruling on a motion in the civil case, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Christopher Krueger dismissed Blackwell’s accusations of wrongful termination and racial discrimination, but allowed the sexual harassment claim to proceed.
He noted that according to Ma’s own deposition, “Ma called plaintiff into the room while half-dressed on three separate occasions and climbed into bed with her on a fourth.” Krueger said that the state’s attorneys’ attempts “to reframe these instances as isolated incidents of ‘unannounced’ entries that typically occur in shared living spaces is not supported by its own evidence.”
A 2021 investigation by The Bee found Ma regularly shared hotel rooms with employees to save money, a practice some experts argued was unwise given possible power dynamics with subordinates.
The text blasts from Phillips’ committee warn voters of a “scandal surrounding one of the lieutenant governor candidates” and claims that “to avoid a jury, Fiona’s office used $350,000 in taxpayer dollars to quietly settle the lawsuit.”
Ma’s attorney, Ognian Gavrilov, said that Ma hadn’t wanted the state to settle but was unable to stop the state from doing so to avoid a costly legal battle. He said similar cases can bring multimillion dollar payouts if plaintiffs have strong evidence, describing the settlement as a sign the case was weak.
Steven Maviglio, a spokesperson for Ma, predicted the attacks on Ma from Phillips’ committee would be a “blemish” on Tubbs’ political career, although there’s no evidence Tubbs had a role in them.
A spokesperson for Tubbs declined to comment. And Phillips, who sparred with Maviglio on the social media site X Thursday, was undeterred, described the ads as a “public service.”
“I’m just trying to do the voters a favor of letting them know all of the facts that have been swept under the rug,” Phillips said.
This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Early Obama booster drops millions into California’s lieutenant governor race."
