Billionaire Tom Steyer paying online influencers to promote his campaign for governor

California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer.

He's won the endorsement of a political action committee founded by avowed socialist Bernie Sanders. A new poll out this week has him tied for second place in the hotly-contested race for California governor. And several teachers' unions have lined up to support his candidacy. How is he doing it?

Billionaire Tom Steyer is on the rise, in part, because he's been quietly paying online influencers to promote his campaign on social media. Some of the videos he's paid influencers to post have cost as little as $10, according to a report by The Sacramento Bee.

Steyer paid an influencer named Isaiah “Zay Dante” Washington, who has more than 2 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, $10,000 earlier this year, campaign finance records show, according to the Bee. Washington, who typically posts content about sports and pop culture suddenly ventured into politics, and did a video interview with Steyer.

Washington seems to have deleted the video of the interview that was posted on TikTok and Instagram since the reports of the partnership emerged, but it reportedly praised Steyer's pledge to abolish ICE, among other promises of the candidate's liberal agenda.

Numerous videos from other influencers have appeared online as well, with the influencers repeating themes of abolishing ICE and fighting President Trump, like this one posted on Instagram about a week ago by Jessica Moore. And this one from the Talking With Savannah account on TikTok. Or this one, by the Sandy Votes account on TikTok, which praises Steyer's policies for being "by far the most progressive."

Not everyone who's been approached by Steyer's campaign has agreed to play ball, however. Serabeth Mullaney, a buxom social media presence who has a modest following, told the Bee she was approached about promoting the Steyer campaign, and asked to post supportive videos one to three times a week on both Instagram and TikTok. She shot down the offer to sign a contract, describing it as a "predatory tactic."

Meanwhile, the tactic may be paying off as Steyer's poll numbers have been improving. A new poll from Emerson College that was released earlier this week showed Steyer running in second place among the field of Democrats, just two points behind Xavier Becerra, and tied at 17% support with Republican candidate Steve Hilton.