How Tom Steyer's unexpected alliance with progressives vaulted him into the top tier of California's governor race

When the Bernie Sanders-aligned Our Revolution endorsed Tom Steyer in the unwieldy California governor’s race, the irony of a progressive group founded on an anti-billionaire ethos backing a multibillionaire wasn’t lost on its leader.“If you had asked me a year ago, ‘Oh, are you going to endorse a billionaire for anything? I think that would have been highly unlikely,” Joseph Geevarghese, Our Revolution’s executive director, said in an interview.But Geevarghese said he’d been impressed with Steyer’s policy platform and engagement with liberal groups in the state.“The most energizing and ideologically aligned candidate just happens to be a billionaire,” he said.The unexpected alliance between progressives and Steyer — a hedge fund founder who’s faced criticism for past investments in controversial spaces like private prisons — has helped vault him into the top tier of a California governor’s race that lacks a clear favorite one month out from the all-party primary. Despite initial skepticism from liberal groups and politicians in the biggest Democratic state in the country, Steyer managed to stay in the conversation with his consistent push for progressive priorities, like single-payer health care, taxing the profits of oil companies and a billionaire tax that is likely to appear on the