Matt Mahan pushes to make California governor race about waste

A top Democrat running to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted entrenched politicians afraid of change as he pledged to focus the 2026 California gubernatorial election on “waste, fraud and abuse.”

San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who’s positioning himself as a moderate antidote to radical progressive politics, argued California is fixated on a proposed billionaire tax while fraud in the state goes unchecked.

“I don’t get politicians who defend the status quo and pretend that government couldn’t possibly be more efficient, more effective, more technology-enabled,” Mahan, 43, told the Wall Street Journal.

Mahan warned against the proposal to place the billionaire tax on election ballots this year, asking voters if the state should impose a one-time 5% tax — a debate that has wealthy Golden State residents like Larry Ellison fleeing for other states.

“It’s playing with fire,” Mahan told the WSJ. “You could have a very serious snowball effect that could threaten Silicon Valley’s primacy.”

Mahan, who joins the governor race with just four months to the primary, said he prefers an estate tax rather than a wealth and asset tax that could target nearly 300 billionaires in the Golden State.

“I don’t believe that high-net-worth individuals should be able to borrow against appreciated assets endlessly as a way to avoid paying capital gains,” he explained.

Mahan says launching a state estate tax could help balance California’s budgets by requiring estates or heirs to pay taxes on unrealized capital gains at death,

The moderate Democrat also said California should follow the model of “law-abiding city” San Jose instead of being an outright “sanctuary city.”

“If you’re committing a serious crime, deportation is a likely consequence and a valid consequence,” he said, adding that he supports legal pathways to citizenship.

While Mahan aligns with Newsom on the controversial billionaire tax, he has broken with the governor on his stance on sanctuary cities, along with several other hard-line positions.

That has made the San Jose mayor one of the sitting governor’s most outspoken critics within the party as Newsom is widely seen as a likely 2028 presidential contender.

“I am a moderate,” Mahan told the WSJ. “And I’m not scared of any interest group.”

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