Gov. Gavin Newsom may be fighting for his political life amid a fourth wave of COVID, a drought without modern precedent, another horrific fire season, a spiking murder rate and an increasingly credible-seeming recall.

But at least he has a lot of really rich political allies.

At last count, the main committee tasked with defending the governor against the Sept. 14 recall has raised some $39 million. Another allied committee and Newsom’s own 2022 campaign account, which state law allows him to draw upon this year, add another $4 million to that war chest.

That’s more than double all the cash raised by the committees campaigning for his ouster and the 46 candidates hoping to replace him, combined.

It also represents the generosity — or perhaps the strategic expenditure — of a broad coalition of some unlikely allies.

They include California’s largest teachers union and its most vocal charter school advocates; nurses and the hospitals they sometimes clash with; Realtors, developers, building trades unions and corporate landlords who have differing views on the housing crisis; defense contractors at Lockheed Martin; abortion rights advocates; new car dealers; and the financier-turned-liberal-megadonor George Soros. All have found common cause in keeping Newsom in his job.

A new CalMatters analysis of the donors to the main anti-recall committee found that organized labor threw Newsom the largest financial lifeline — roughly 45% of the total, including $1.8 million from the teachers union and $1.75 million from the prison guards this week.

Companies and individuals hailing from the state’s business community coughed up another 36% of the $39 million. The remainder came from an assortment of ideological interest groups, tribal governments, the California Democratic Party and small-dollar contributors. (CalMatters’ recall money tracker now shows where donations from a wide range of industries are going.)

Newsom’s Financial Defenders

Campaign contributions to committees fighting the recall. Click here to see individual contributors.

If political contributions are a vote of confidence, the votes of the well-heeled, powerful and influential are overwhelmingly in the incumbent governor’s camp.

Newsom’s current haul isn’t quite the $58 million that he raised during the 2018 race. And it’s dwarfed by recent corporate-backed ballot measure fights that have hit the 9-digit mark.

But if donations were votes, Newsom would defeat the recall in a landslide. The political reality could be far different: A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found pro- and anti-recall sentiment in a virtual dead heat among likely voters. That could provide Newsom’s allies with fresh incentive to pony up — and his campaign more reason to solicit money for the campaign ahead, especially to increase awareness and enthusiasm among Democrats.

The governor’s campaign seems to be taking the threat seriously. In a TV spot that hit the state’s airwaves Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive icon, implored the electorate to vote no “to protect California and our democracy.”

Neither a boatload of money nor a crowded roster of well-financed supporters, however, is a sure recipe of electoral success. Last year, a campaign to repeal state restrictions on affirmative action outraised the opposition nearly 17-to-1, while racking up endorsements from every corner of California power and influence. It failed by 14 percentage points.

But there’s another, even more important reason for many to give, said Dan Schnur, former chairperson of California’s Fair Political Practices Commission and a past strategist for Republican politicians: “This is a relatively painless way to strengthen your relationship with an incumbent governor.”

California campaign finance regulations cap the amount of money that gubernatorial candidates can raise at $32,400 per person — a limit that covers the challengers seeking to replace Newsom. But no such limits apply to committees raising money for a general cause — like the one defending Newsom against the recall. That difference is allowing individuals and groups to write million-dollar checks to help the governor.

Here’s how the competition stacks up.

While candidates can only receive capped contributions or may self-fund, general pro-recall committees can receive unlimited contributions. All the pro-recall candidates and committees have raised $18.4 million combined, compared to $42 million for the anti-recall side.

Organized Labor to the Rescue

Just as the news of the surprisingly grim Berkeley poll was percolating through the California political universe, two more public employee unions — both political forces in their own right and conspicuously absent from the governor’s campaign finance filings — announced this week that they were opening up their coffers.

First, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association threw in $1.75 million. Then came the California Teachers Association with $1.8 million.

Just days after the check from the teachers landed in Newsom’s campaign account, he gave the closing keynote speech today at the union’s summer digital meeting. He applauded the union’s hard-fought legislative accomplishments, which, incidentally, served as a reminder to the teachers that the governor had helped secure them.

Though the teachers were the largest funder of Newsom’s 2018 campaign, that relationship got complicated last spring as Newsom and the union sparred first over when teachers would get vaccines, then how quickly schools should reopen.

But now, Newsom “is facing opponents who are funded by a network that wants to dismantle public education. The choice is stark and clear,” union president E. Toby Boyd said in a statement Wednesday.

Many of the top Republicans vying to take Newsom’s place in the governor’s office support bolstering charter schools, allowing families to spend publicly-funded vouchers on private education and making it easier to fire teachers deemed to be underperforming.