California’s three investor-owned utility monopolies have a lot riding on the outcome of the state’s first open race for governor since 2018, with their soaring electric bills taking center-stage in the race, and candidates offering different rhetoric and proposals for how to lower customers’ bills. 

The companies – Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) – have thus far not contributed directly to any of the Republicans or Democrats running in the state’s open multi-party primary. 

But PG&E has spent nearly $10 million on a negative advertising campaign against leading Democratic candidate Tom Steyer. 

And of all the candidates, only one – former Attorney General Xavier Becerra – has received significant campaign contributions from the three California investor-owned utilities over the course of his career. 

EPI reviewed career-long local, state, and federal campaign finance filings of the six leading candidates for California Governor who participated in a televised debate last week. The filings were accessed via the California Secretary of State’s Power Search and Cal-Access as well the Federal Elections Commission and the City of San Jose. 

Xavier Becerra

Of the six remaining major candidates, Xavier Becerra received the most contributions from utilities and labor unions that represent utility employees over the course of his career. Becerra, the former U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services, California Attorney General, U.S. Congressman, and California Assembly member, received over $153,000 from PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric in his various campaigns for Congress. During this time, Becerra also received contributions of $38,000 from various other utilities and utility trade associations. When serving as California’s Attorney General, he received $7,800 each from Sempra and Southern California Edison in 2019, which was the legal limit for contributions in the Attorney General’s race. In the current Governor’s race, Becerra has not received contributions from utilities or utility affiliated unions.

In his Attorney General race, Becerra received $42,600 from the California State Association of Electrical Workers. CSAEW is made up of 27 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local affiliates, with over 83,000 members. Of those members, over half of them are from IBEW Locals 1245, 465, and 47. These three locals represent utility workers at PG&E, SDG&E/Sempra, and Southern California Edison, respectively. Representatives from these three utilities also serve on the Board of CSAEW.  

IBEW Local 1245 joined PG&E in its spending in the Governor’s race against Steyer, contributing $75,000 to join PG&E’s $10 million. 

(EPI did not consider contributions from IBEW’s other broader political vehicles, which represent non-utility electrical workers, as part of this analysis.)

	Congressional Runs	Attorney General Runs	Governor Run	Totals
PG&E	$28,500	$0	$0	$28,500
SoCal Edison	$62,700	$7,800	$0	$70,500
Sempra/SDG&E	$62,000	$7,800	$0	$69,800
Other utilities & trade associations	$38,000	$0	$0	$38,000
Utility affiliated labor groups	$0	$42,600	$0	$42,600
Totals	$191,200	$58,200	$0	$249,400

*EPI did not review campaign finance data from Becerra’s single term serving in the California Assembly in 1990, which is not readily available.

Becerra has not articulated a detailed plan to address high utility bills. He has said in social media posts and in a debate that as governor he would “immediately institute a freeze on utility rates … while the state investigates long-term solutions to bring these costs under control.” 

On the “energy and utilities” section of his campaign website, Becerra pits clean energy growth as a potential barrier to affordability, saying that “California’s clean-energy transition is necessary and urgent—but too many families are paying the price through rising utility bills, unreliable service, and confusing rate structures.” The website also calls for “stronger oversight and accountability of our utilities with increased transparency and accountability that can ensure reliability, safety, affordability, and actual emission reduction.”

Chad Bianco

Chad Bianco, a Republican and the sheriff of Riverside County, has not reported any contributions from utility companies. Bianco received a $5,000 contribution from IBEW Local 47, which represents Southern California Edison employees.

Bianco has not articulated a detailed plan to address high utility costs. He says he would “[h]old the CPUC and CEC accountable for allowing rate price increases to take effect.”

Steve Hilton

Steve Hiton, a Republican and Fox News contributor, has not reported any contributions from utility companies or utility affiliated unions in the race. 

Hilton predominantly lays the blame for California’s high electric bills at the feet of renewable energy. He says he’s running to “cut your electric bills in half.” His website calls for an end to renewable energy standards, and to “allow natural gas, nuclear, and consumer-driven rooftop solar to compete on a level playing field, free from government mandates that tilt the market.” He also says he would ensure California’s “farmland is preserved for food production by banning new solar farms on fertile and productive fields.”

In a separate section of his campaign web site, called “Ending the PG&E nightmare,” Hilton criticizes PG&E’s campaign contributions to Democrats, and calls for breaking up PG&E’s monopoly, saying he “will move California away from PG&E’s monopoly model and toward locally owned utilities and decentralized energy that put communities back in control.”

Matt Mahan

Matt Mahan, the current mayor and a former city council member in San Jose, was a late entrant to the Governor’s race. Mahan, a Democrat, has not reported any contributions from utility companies or utility affiliated unions in his gubernatorial campaign. Mahan did not receive contributions from PG&E in his runs for City Council or Mayor of San Jose, according to San Jose campaign finance records.

Mahan’s web site does not address high utility bills, and EPI could not find significant public statements from Mahan about how he would address the problem. As mayor, after years of tension with PG&E and efforts to explore a city takeover of PG&E’s assets to form a municipal utility under previous city leadership, Mahan oversaw “a reset of our relationship with PG&E.” He said that a negotiated deal between the city and the utility would lead to faster connection times for large power users like data centers in San Jose.

Katie Porter

Katie Porter, a Democrat who served in Congress from 2019-2025, has pledged not to take corporate PAC dollars. She has not reported any contributions from utility companies or utility affiliated unions.

Porter says on her website that she “will work to accelerate our transition to clean energy by investing in renewable resources like wind, solar, and geothermal, and expanding the grid to support these technologies.” She has made similar comments calling for increasing clean energy supply and grid capacity in interviews.

In a candidate forum, Porter criticized the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), saying that many Californians “feel like the Public Utilities Commission is no longer fighting for them.”

“The Public Utilities Commission needs to have a reboot and a refresh,” she said.

Tom Steyer

Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder, climate advocate and billionaire who ran for President in 2020, is running a largely self-funded campaign. Steyer, a Democrat, has not reported any contributions from utility companies or utility affiliated unions for his gubernatorial run or his earlier presidential run. 

Steyer has offered the most commentary of the candidates on how to lower electric bills, and the most direct confrontation with investor-owned utilities, pointing at the utilities’ profit appetite and incentive structure as the cause of high costs. He has made a pledge to lower utility bills by 25% central to his campaign. He has called for lowering corporate utilities’ return on equity (ROE), which is the amount of money that the CPUC allows investors to earn on their ownership share of the utilities’ capital investments. The companies currently earn about a 10% ROE. Steyer has not called for a specific number, but has said, “I would like it to be a couple percent lower” and that “While the appropriate cost of capital is always subject to debate, there is no case that I see for ongoing double-digit returns.”

He’s also called for an increase in public bond financing to displace utility shareholders’ equity financing.

Steyer has called for “breaking up” investor-owned utilities, saying that increasing competition will lower costs and running ads tailored to each of PG&E, SoCalEdison, and San Diego Gas & Electric’s service territories, and for expanding the role of community choice aggregators.

Steyer has criticized the CPUC, saying he would appoint regulators who would better scrutinize costs, particularly those spent on wildfire mitigation, which he has criticized as being overpriced due to investor-owned utilities’ incentive to overspend on capital investments like burying power lines.

“We also need to appoint Public Utilities Commission members who will actually stand up to utility monopolies instead of rubber-stamping their requests for double-digit ‘return rates’,” Steyer wrote in January.

PG&E began spending against Steyer as Swalwell allegations disrupted race

PG&E has funded an independent expenditure group, “Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy, No on Steyer for Governor 2026.” 

PG&E and IBEW Local 1245 set the group up on April 7, 2026. On April 10, PG&E provided $8 million in funding and IBEW contributed $50,000. 

That same day, the San Francisco Chronicle published an exposé alleging that emerging Democratic frontrunner Eric Swalwell had sexually abused a staffer, shaking up the race. PG&E’s PAC had been a major contributor to both Swalwell and his leadership PAC throughout his career, ranking among his top contributors during multiple election cycles. 

Both PG&E and IBEW 1245 made subsequent donations on April 20, 2026, of $1.975 million and $25,000 respectively to Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy. The group is funding another anti-Steyer group, California is Not for Sale, No on Steyer for Governor 2026, a Coalition of Housing Advocates, Labor and Small Business. 

PG&E CEO Patti Poppe was asked by investor analysts about the governor’s race on the company’s first-quarter earnings call on April 23. 

“Whomever is elected Governor of the State of California, we’re going to want what they want, and that’s affordable utility rates,” Poppe said, before pointing to the utility’s more recent reductions in bills. “And so politicians have to say what they have to say, I guess, to get elected. But when it comes down to brass tacks and we actually have to do what’s promised, I think our performance is a key enabler to our ability to work with whomever is elected to do exactly what these politicians want, we want the same thing. We want a healthy, vibrant California powered by PG&E and the IOU model is essential to the growth and prosperity of California.”

Pedro Pizarro, CEO of Southern California Edison parent company Edison International, also addressed questions about California’s election on the company’s April 28 first-quarter earnings call. 

“Ultimately we will work with and work well with whomever the people of the state elect. But we are very focused on making sure that we are being clear in what the facts really are around the affordability trajectory,” Pizarro said. He went on to discuss the utility’s efforts to steer Southern California Edison’s rate increases to be at or below inflation. Later in the call, Pizarro addressed Steyer’s proposal to reduce utility bills by 25%, stating that he did not “see any sort of fact basis for the 25% reduction and the way we get rate reduction is the hard work that [his team] at SCE are doing, that has led to the lowest system average rates among our investor owned utility peers.” He continued: “the lowest rates tend to be in vertically integrated utilities, and I think much to Mr. Steyer’s chagrin, some of those still have quite a bit of coal generation in their systems.”

California’s open primary is on June 2, 2026, and the top two vote recipients from either party will advance to the general election.