Episode

Big Tech Spent Big on California's Primaries. Did Voters Buy It?

Podcast
Political Breakdown
Published
Jun 16, 2026
Duration seconds
1300
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://next.kqed.org/news/12087807
Audio
https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/KQINC6012938127.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/political-breakdown-683875/episodes/big-tech-spent-big-on-california-s-primaries-did-voters-buy-it
Markdown
/podcast/political-breakdown-683875/big-tech-spent-big-on-california-s-primaries-did-voters-buy-it.md

Actions

  • POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/political-breakdown-683875/episodes/big-tech-spent-big-on-california-s-primaries-did-voters-buy-it/transcription-requests
    Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
  • GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/political-breakdown-683875/big-tech-spent-big-on-california-s-primaries-did-voters-buy-it.md
    Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

Summary

Silicon Valley spent big in California’s primaries. Venture capitalists, artificial intelligence executives and tech billionaires poured tens of millions of dollars into races up and down the ballot, trying to influence who will regulate them. For the most part, their preferred candidates fell short, a sign of growing anti-tech sentiment among voters. However, tech-backed super PACs managed to secure some notable victories. KQED's Lesley McClurg is joined by Politico's Silicon Valley reporter Christine Mui to assess the impact of Big Tech's big spending. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠Political Breakdown’s weekly newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠, delivered straight to your inbox. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices