Former Google exec and investor eyes California Senate race

A San Francisco Bay Area tech executive and investor is considering a run for the U.S. Senate in California, potentially scrambling a crowded field of established Democrats.

Lexi Reese, a Google and Facebook alumna who served as chief operating officer at the HR platform Gusto, is preparing for the race to succeed the retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — aiming to translate her business experience into a run with help from a high-profile political team.

“I want to put that expertise to work on behalf of working Californians to make lives easier for everyone in our state,” she told POLITICO.

Reese, who also spent time as a limited partner at the venture fund Operator Collective and as an executive at General Catalyst, is preparing to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to formally explore a Senate run Thursday.

She is working with the team at GPS Impact, led by Roy Temple, Jay Howser and Andi Johnson, which helped guide Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in his 2022 campaign and successfully propelled Cherelle Parker to the Democratic nomination for Philadelphia mayor last month; Rebecca Pearcey, political director and senior adviser to Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign and the pollsters Celinda Lake and David Mermin of Lake Research Partners, which polls for President Joe Biden.

Reese’s aides said she plans to make an unspecified “significant” investment in her own campaign, but that she also expects to seek contributions from others. She will make a final decision on the race soon after conferring more with family and friends.

A first-time candidate from San Mateo County, Reese would face a gauntlet of challenges in a massive and expensive state where it can take years and even decades to become a household name. California Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter — nationally recognized Democrats with big brands and followings of their own — along with progressive East Bay stalwart Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) have raised millions of dollars into their respective campaigns and super PACs.

But Reese, whose team shared their theory of the case ahead of her anticipated filing, is pitching herself as a fresh face and a “different kind of leader” at a time when many Californians have lost faith in the political class in Congress. In a statement, Reese pointed to an economy that “isn’t working,” described Californians as being exhausted and stretched thin and lamented the higher costs of seemingly everything.

“We have more people working than any time in our lives, yet folks are struggling with more widespread financial fragility and income inequality that puts the American Dream out of reach, especially for women and people of color,” Reese said. “As a working mom, I’ve spent my career in nonprofits and at technology and financial services businesses — working to help create economic opportunity for women and small businesses.”

During her time at Gusto, where she worked on sales and marketing, Reese helped connect small businesses to federal loans during the pandemic. A Forbes profile of Reese detailed her transition from documentary filmmaking in Nicaragua (one movie centered on girls forced into prostitution to support their families) to working as a paralegal in the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan district attorney's office to studying social entrepreneurship at the Harvard Business School.

Reese went on to work at Accion International, American Express and Google, where she also points to her work with small businesses. She served on the board of San Francisco-based Gap Inc.

Early public and private polls show a tight race at the top between Schiff and Porter, with Lee running a distant third. Schiff had nearly $25 million on hand at the close of the last quarter while Porter finished the year’s first filing period with $9.5 million. Lee, the lone Bay Area Democrat in the race before Reese, stood at $1.2 million as of March 31.