Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs is off to a fast fundraising start in his 2026 bid for lieutenant governor, raising more than $400,000 in the first week of his campaign. 

More than $330,000 of that total came from donations of $5,000 or more, according to a campaign filing spanning July 17 to July 26. A Tubbs spokesperson said 87% of the campaign’s 973 donors had contributed less than $100.

The current list of Tubbs’ large-dollar donors is a mix of Bay Area and Los Angeles-based individuals; only one donor, who gave $5,000, was listed under a Stockton address. A number of them work in tech, entrepreneurship, or investing, such as billionaire Ram Shriram, who gave $5,000, and Y Combinator partner Michael Seibel, who gave $9,100.

Around half of the disclosed donors, such as Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, have been contributing since Tubbs’ Stockton days. Spiegel gave a total of $150,000 over three occasions to Tubbs’ 2016 and 2020 mayoral campaigns, and also gave the Stockton Scholars initiative a founding gift of $20 million in 2018. Tubbs and Spiegel met while they were undergraduates at Stanford.

The campaign’s filing also did not include any contributions from businesses or political action committees.

Tubbs’ campaign launched on July 17 with a list of progressive and anti-poverty priorities, including building more housing, addressing climate change, and implementing guaranteed basic income. He is currently a special advisor on poverty to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and lives in Los Angeles, where he relocated after losing reelection to Mayor Kevin Lincoln in 2020.

Despite the lieutenant governor election in 2026 being a long way off, Tubbs isn’t the only candidate to have started campaigning. State Treasurer Fiona Ma launched her campaign last summer and has since accrued a fund of more than $4 million. State Sen. Steven Bradford, who started campaigning in April, had more than $500,000 on hand as of June 30.

Miriam Waldvogel is serving a summer internship with Stocktonia. She attends Princeton University and is a Stockton native.