Xavier Becerra campaign caught up in influencer disclosure fight
An influencer turned campaign staffer for gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra quietly amended his social media posts to include a disclaimer that he was paid following uproar that rival candidate Tom Steyer had paid influencers to boost him online.
Becerra’s campaign hired influencer Jordan “Jay” Gonzalez last month as a digital strategist. He had previously created content supporting Becerra. The former state attorney general is now polling at the top of the field in the June 2 primary with Republican Fox News pundit Steve Hilton, followed by Steyer. Becerra and Steyer are Democrats.
Last week, The Sacramento Bee reported that Steyer’s campaign had paid influencer Isaiah “Zayy Dante” Washington $10,000 to post a friendly interview with the candidate. Washington did not disclose that he had received money for the since-deleted video. Steyer’s campaign is paying other influencers $1,000 a month for their support, after initially offering $10 per video. The Becerra campaign has made memes criticizing the billionaire for “buying” the election, as Steyer has poured $200 million of his own fortune into his campaign, surpassing records for the most expensive candidacy in state history.
Campaigns from the local to the national level have turned to influencers to help spread their message and sway voters as legacy media’s reach has waned. Though the practice is legal, California law requires influencers to disclose when they have received payment to support or oppose a candidate or ballot initiative.
The Fair Political Practices Commission is now investigating after two pro-Becerra influencers filed a complaint against Steyer’s campaign. Steyer’s campaign filed their own complaint against Becerra’s campaign on Tuesday.
Steyer also published an article on X clarifying his campaign’s rules for engaging influencers.
“Paying creators for their work is not some radical idea. Our opponents, like Xavier Becerra, certainly do,” Steyer said. “The difference is that while we’re operating openly and transparently, they’re doing it indirectly, through consultants and shadowy groups that voters never get to see clearly.”
Gonzalez is a fitness and menswear influencer with a combined 370,000-person following on TikTok and Instagram, where he has increasingly focused on immigration and Latino issues. He posted a three-part interview with Becerra on March 24, 25 and 26, where he quizzed the candidate about the “effect of money in campaigns” and about being locked out of a since-canceled USC debate. Those videos, along with additional pro-Becerra videos posted on April 6, 8 and 13, did not carry disclosures nor did any payment appear in Becerra’s campaign filings.
Last week, when the FPPC received its Steyer complaint, Gonzalez started editing Instagram videos from April 22 to the present to include this sentence: “The author was paid by Becerra for Governor.” After The Bee’s inquiry on Monday, he began amending his Facebook posts to include disclaimers.
In an email, he pushed back on being called a creator, and said Becerra’s campaign hired him as a digital strategist starting April 18.
“I also happen to create content that supports Secretary Becerra, and when I do, I always include the proper disclaimers and am fully compliant with California law,” he wrote. “I had no employment relationship with them before that point, and I was not compensated for any of that content. I believe in Secretary Becerra and wanted to cover him.”
Becerra’s campaign previously said all of his online support was “organic” and unpaid since he began surging in polls last month after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out. Spokesperson Jonathan Underland said the campaign had not paid any outside influencers other than Gonzalez. He said the campaign treats traditional media reporters and influencers very similarly, providing both groups with information like press releases and inviting them to events to interview Becerra about his platform.
‘Very aligned with the mission’
Gonzalez was in talks as recently as March to boost other candidates in the race, including former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, according to a March 2 email from his manager Aleja Jimenez obtained by The Bee.
Villaraigosa is a Becerra critic who has consistently polled at single digits in the race. Jimenez’s email to his campaign outlined plans for Gonzalez to produce short-form videos and sit-down interviews, coverage of a March 7 rally in Los Angeles, and a strategic rollout, for a total of $16,250.
“Jay is very aligned with the mission. We’re excited about the potential to collaborate in a way that actually informs and engages our community,” Jimenez wrote. “Considering the amount of creative, on-site, and post-production work involved, Jay’s investment for this full collaboration would be $16,250. ... We’re excited about the opportunity to make this work and build something meaningful. Let us know your thoughts and how you’d like to proceed.”
Gonzalez said in his email to The Bee that he ultimately declined to work with Villaraigosa. Seven weeks later, he announced online that Becerra’s campaign had hired him.
“In this new chapter, I am telling a new story. Xavier, like me, is a son of immigrants. Who simply wanted to make the sacrifices of his parents count,” he wrote. “After interviewing the vast majority of candidates and researching their campaigns. I was overwhelmingly convinced that Becerra was the right choice for California.”
‘Is it necessary to have a brain worm to be the Health and Human Services Secretary?’
Another influencer, Maggie Reed, was an early Becerra booster, dating back to last fall, when the former Health and Human Services secretary was struggling to break out of the crowded field of candidates. The Bay Area political satirist, who has almost 1.1 million followers across YouTube, X, Instagram and TikTok, regularly posts skits parodying national Republicans like FBI Director Kash Patel, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump.
On Sept. 22, 2025, Reed published an interview with Becerra, asking for his thoughts on Robert Kennedy Jr., his successor at HHS.
“Is it necessary to have a brain worm to be the Health and Human Services Secretary?” she said, referring to when doctors found a dead parasitic worm in Kennedy’s brain.
“Having a brain is necessary,” Becerra replied.
Underland said the campaign never paid Reed, who did not respond to a request for comment.
In February, her manager quoted the Villaraigosa campaign at $4,500 for one video boosting his candidacy, or $7,000 for two videos, according to a Feb. 19 email obtained by The Bee.
Three days earlier, she posted a video with Becerra, calling him “an extremely qualified candidate for governor.” She has since posted two more videos with him, including one last week where she endorsed him, calling him “the nicest politician I have ever met.”
On Tuesday, Steyer’s campaign filed an FPPC complaint, asking the watchdog agency to investigate the Becerra campaign, flagging Gonzalez and Reed’s posts, according to a copy obtained by The Bee.
Campaign counsel Ryan Hughes claimed Becerra’s camp had allegedly failed to notify influencers of their requirement to add disclosures to paid social media posts and disclose those payments in campaign finance reports.
“The totality of these circumstances is clear: the Becerra Committee is paying Gonzalez, who has either (a) not included the required disclaimers in the content he posts or (b) gone back weeks later to edit those posts to include them,” Hughes wrote. “Those circumstances strongly indicate the Becerra Committee had not properly informed Gonzalez of his posting disclaimer requirements.”
Underland, the Becerra campaign spokesperson, accused Steyer of copying President Donald Trump’s “MAGA playbook.”
“It’s really not surprising that a billionaire who built his fortune buying fossil fuel companies and private prisons isn’t queasy about trying to buy his way into the governor’s mansion,” Underland said in a statement. “California voters have seen this before. They rejected it then. They’re rejecting it now.”
This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 5:00 PM.
