www.montereycountynow.com MAY 28-JUNE 3, 2026 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 17 Jaz Roche, also known to nearly 11,000 TikTok followers as @spo0kymom, hawks facial cleansing bars, baby wagons and AI tools in short social media videos. On a website where clients can pay her to post videos about their products, she says she’s based in Pennsylvania. Yet the content creator has taken an interest in the California governor’s race lately. TikTok and Instagram accounts linked to Roche posted 34 times in the 10-day period of May 8-18 to boost the campaign of billionaire Tom Steyer or to criticize his leading Democratic opponent, Xavier Becerra. “Hear me out, I have something to admit,” Roche says in the first video, posted May 8, on an account where she describes herself as a “so-cal girlypop.” “I did not expect the most progressive governor candidate to be a billionaire. But look at the policies, you guys.” What she didn’t say was that Steyer’s campaign is paying her to say it. Steyer, who has poured nearly $200 million into the most expensive primary campaign in state history, is under scrutiny for using paid social media influencers to post favorable things about him. Is that legal? Gov. Gavin Newsom three years ago signed Senate Bill 678 into law, meant to bring transparency to the increasingly intertwined world of politics and content creators, requiring influencers to be upfront in their posts about being paid by a political campaign. In one of the first tests of the law, regulators have opened an investigation into one of the Steyer influencer videos. But experts and transparency advocates aren’t optimistic: The law was intentionally designed with no real penalties, and the agency responsible for enforcing it sometimes takes years to resolve investigations. “This is where the ‘Wild West’ analogy becomes useful,” says Dan Schnur, a political science professor and former chair of the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission. Campaign finance filings from January through April 18 show Steyer has paid over $123,400 to at least eight influencers. The New York Times reported that includes $100,000 to Texasbased Latino mega-influencer Carlos Eduardo Espina, whose 14.3 million TikTok followers are a coveted target for Democrats and who has endorsed Steyer. The campaign is also paying over $870,000 to a digital media agency, Group Project Digital, that solicits creators to post daily videos about Steyer. The listing initially offered $10 per video; it was amended last week to offer $1,000 a month and now includes a sentence telling creators they need to disclose the payments. The state investigation covers just one of the influencer videos, in which content creator Isaiah Washington (known as @zaydante) did not disclose that Steyer’s campaign paid him $10,000 for a now-deleted video. It was sparked by a complaint from a pair of political social media influencers who post frequently in support of Becerra. On Tuesday, they filed another complaint alleging numerous additional paid, undisclosed posts, including from accounts in other countries. “What he’s done is inundate the internet in every way, shape and form to try and create an echo chamber,” says Beatrice Gomberg, one of the complainants. Among the accounts they’ve recently highlighted: @foosgonewild, which has posted memes, content about Southern California street culture and, on May 5, an interview with Steyer talking about his opposition to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The account has 3.3 million followers on Instagram and 1 million on TikTok. The TikTok video has no disclosures. On Instagram, at the bottom of the video description, the account notes it’s a partner with Californiabased social video firm Flighthouse. Neither the content creator nor Flighthouse responded to requests for comment. The Steyer campaign would not disclose how much it paid the firm. Steyer has defended soliciting influencers, saying they deserve to be paid for their work. Spokesperson Kevin Liao calls Gomberg’s first complaint “baseless” and says the campaign specified in its contracts with all third-party content firms that they needed to include payment disclosures, satisfying the campaign’s legal obligations under the state transparency law. The campaign doesn’t review posts in advance, he adds. Asked why the campaign had paid some creators who A panel of leading Democratic candidates for governor spoke in Monterey, hosted by the Democratic Women for Monterey County, on March 12. The field has shifted since then with some prominent candidates (Betty Yee, third from left, and Eric Swalwell, who did not attend) dropping out. Other speakers included, from left: Tony Thurmond, Tom Steyer, Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa and Matt Mahan. DANIEL DREIFUSS
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