Tech ‘got spanked’ in this week’s primaries. It could be a preview of more to come. - POLITICO
Skip to Main Content
California<br>California Playbook<br>California Climate<br>California Decoded
Tech ‘got spanked’ in this week’s primaries. It could be a preview of more to come.<br>Tech is poised to suffer more electoral defeats this summer in New York, Florida and elsewhere, where industry detractors are frontrunners in their upcoming primaries.
In Florida, Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican frontrunner to be the next governor of Florida, has made AI the top issue on which he’s willing to part ways with Trump. | Alex Brandon/AP
By Christine Mui, Dustin Gardiner, Madison Fernandez and Kimberly Leonard06/04/2026 08:00 AM EDT
Silicon Valley’s political brand can’t stop taking a beating.<br>This week, Californians dealt a series of blows to candidates with backing from the tech industry or roots in it — and similar anti-tech headwinds are building up ahead of contests across the country.
Less than half an hour after polls closed in the Golden State, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan conceded the governor’s race, becoming the most prominent casualty for tech on primary night. The former startup executive rallied Silicon Valley donors to pour tens of millions of dollars into his failed bid, only to land in the low single digits.
Tech challengers are also stumbling in congressional races in the tech-heavy Bay Area. Entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal conceded early Wednesday after coming nowhere close to advancing against Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive who’s championed a proposed tax on California billionaires. And wealthy venture capitalist Eric Jones could get boxed out of his challenge to Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson in his Napa County district, as Jones is pulling in at a close third.<br>“This is a preview of what’s coming in 2026, and it’s a preview of what’s coming in 2028,” Rob Flaherty, a Democratic strategist who was deputy campaign manager for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, told POLITICO. “Association with tech money is increasingly going to become a problem.”<br>The anti-tech mood is rising across the U.S., with the California results just the latest demonstration of populist opposition. Voters are angry about water and energy-hungry data centers in their communities, and parents are concerned that chatbots are harming their children. Tech is poised to suffer more electoral defeats this summer in New York, Florida and elsewhere, where detractors challenging the industry are frontrunners in their upcoming primaries.<br>“People are looking for these avenues to push back on tech,” said Irene Kao, director of Courage California, a progressive advocacy group. “Voters at the end of the day really want to see candidates who reflect who they are. They want candidates who feel less out of touch.”<br>The losses Tuesday, especially among candidates with tech backgrounds, reflect a level of political naiveté among industry megadonors who’ve only recently sought to emerge as kingmakers in state politics or congressional races, according to a prominent Silicon Valley Democratic fundraiser who was granted anonymity to speak frankly.<br>“The tech guys that think they know politics, those are the ones that got spanked,” the fundraiser said. “These guys are wannabes, the ones that don’t appreciate that political science is actually a science.”<br>But it wasn’t just in California. In Iowa, Republican businessman Zach Lahn pulled off a rare victory against a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump after calling for a data center moratorium and vowing to tax companies five times more to build them. Contenders elsewhere are similarly taking aim at tech billionaires and the artificial intelligence industry, finding political upside in running against Silicon Valley.<br>New Yorkers will go to the polls June 23 to decide who will replace Manhattan Rep. Jerry Nadler in a race where dueling AI interests have elevated Assemblymember Alex Bores into a symbol of the fight over how AI should be regulated.<br>Bores, an alum-turned-critic of data analytics company Palantir, was the first target of a super PAC in the Leading the Future super PAC network, funded by donors like OpenAI President Greg Brockman and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He drew the ire of the PAC for his sponsorship of New York’s RAISE Act, one of the country’s landmark AI safety regulations.<br>But Bores’ allies are betting that the $4 million spent against him from LTF’s Think Big super PAC will backfire. Much of his campaign has centered around AI regulation efforts, leading to a wide range of support — from progressives to PACs with links to Anthropic, which has taken a friendlier stance to AI guardrails. Pro-Bores PACs, some of which are backed by rival industry forces, have for weeks outspent Think Big in the race, and LTF has accused Bores of being a hypocrite over that support.<br>Bores’ campaign is casting Think Big as the boogeyman in the final weeks.<br>Bores has...