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Top 15 Contributors to California 2026 Citizen Initiative Campaigns (So Far)

With more than six months still to go before voters cast their ballots in November, California’s top 15 ballot-initiative contributors have already poured nearly $200 million into the state’s initiative process.

Top 15 Contributors to California 2026 Citizen Initiative Campaigns (So Far)
Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash.
  1. Sergey Brin – $45,000,000. Google co-founder and Alphabet board member, Brin, is known for helping build one of the top 3 most valuable companies in the world.
  2. Uber Technologies, Inc. – $32,512,759. Uber is a San Francisco-based publicly traded transportation and delivery platform company best known for ride-hailing, food delivery, and logistics services. Dara Khosrowshahi is CEO.
  3. SEIU-UHW – $15,915,666. SEIU-UHW is a California healthcare workers union representing more than 120,000 workers and advocating on labor and healthcare policy issues.
  4. California Teachers Association – $15,000,000. The CTA is the state’s largest teachers union.
  5. AFSCME Local 3299 – $13,100,000. AFSCME Local 3299 is the University of California system’s largest employee union.
  6. Chris Larsen and Ripple Labs – $12,000,000. Larsen is the co-founder and executive chairman of Ripple Labs, a San Francisco-based fintech company that uses blockchain technology and the XRP digital asset.
  7. California Hospitals Committee – $10,000,000. The California Hospitals Committee on Issues is a political committee sponsored by the California Association of Hospitals and Health Systems that advances hospital-industry positions in state ballot campaigns.
  8. OpenAI – $10,000,000. OpenAI is a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence research and deployment company whose stated mission is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity. Sam Altman is CEO.
  9. John Doerr III – $9,500,000. Doerr is a longtime Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist known for early investments in major tech companies, including Google and Amazon.
  10. Patrick Collison – $7,000,000. Collison is the co-founder and CEO of Stripe, the fintech company best known for online payments infrastructure.
  11. Michael Moritz – $7,000,000. Moritz is a veteran venture capitalist best known for his long career at Sequoia Capital and early investments in companies such as Google and PayPal.
  12. Gary K. Michelson – $6,000,000. Michelson is an orthopedic spinal surgeon, prolific medical inventor, and philanthropist known for hundreds of patents in spinal surgery technology.
  13. Meyer Luskin – $5,000,000. Luskin is a Los Angeles businessman, philanthropist, and CEO of Scope Industries, known especially for his contributions to UCLA.
  14. Altamed Health Services Corporation – $4,717,867. AltaMed is a large Southern California nonprofit community health system.
  15. Richard Uihlein – $4,000,000. Uihlein is the CEO and co-founder of Uline, a Wisconsin shipping and industrial supplies company, and a prominent conservative political donor.

Source: California Fair Political Practices Commission, data is current as of April 11, 2026.

Cara Brown McCormick

Cara Brown McCormick

Cara McCormick, principal at Smart Campaigns, advises on strategy and research. With 10+ years in major races, she led Maine’s historic move to ranked choice voting. Her work focuses on election reforms that improve representation and voter choice.

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