The biggest loser in the California election is Dave Regan, the union boss who spent $47 million on two botched voting props.

Labor boss Dave Regan unsuccessfully tried to tax billionaires this election season, earning a humiliating, if unofficial, title: California’s biggest election loser.

Regan, who is president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, led an unprecedented effort this year to levy a one-time tax on the state’s billionaires, launching a nearly $400 million battle over three related ballot measures.

By late Tuesday, it was clear that the most controversial proposition, Proposition 40, was going to heat up with nearly 56% of voters opposed to the wealth tax.

And as if that bombardment wasn’t bad enough, Regan’s other ballot measure — Proposition 44, which could have forced community health clinics to spend 90 percent of their revenue on program services — was rejected by 82 percent of voters. The union and its political spending department wasted $17 million on this failed measure.

“His members should chase him away with pitchforks,” a California Democratic strategist told the California Post. “He should be embarrassed, but he won’t be because that’s just the kind of guy he is.”

From past failed attempts to control dialysis clinics to this year’s billionaire tax and Prop. 44, the strategist estimated that Regan’s union had spent more than $100 million in member dues losing elections over the years.

The defeat follows an embarrassing upset in September in which Regan was accused of threatening female colleagues and assaulting former union executive Courtni Pugh, a Democratic operative close to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra who was working to defeat the billionaires tax.

The SEIU-UHW committee that supported the billionaires tax reported $37.3 million in spending through October 17. The union’s Proposition 44 committee reported an additional $11.1 million in spending, and all it had to show for that effort was a 63-point drubbing.

Before the results were announced Tuesday evening, Regan was already speaking out about the money billionaires had invested in what he called a “corrosive” advertising blitz.

Flanked by Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, he pledged to impose a new tax on billionaires in 2028 if lawmakers fail to force the ultra-rich to “pay their fair share.”

“Whatever happens tonight, the reality is… lost somehow in the flood of publicity over the last few weeks, the reality is that since the passage of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ 1.8 million Californians have lost their health insurance,” Regan said.

Regan and his progressive cohort argued that Proposition 40 was necessary to offset President Trump’s federal cuts to health care. But with so much money at stake, California billionaires have pulled together more than $330 million in combined spending across multiple committees. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has personally invested more than $100 million.

Regan’s future within the union could now be in the balance.

Politico reported that SEIU International President April Verrett has the authority to suspend or expel him while the national union weighs the misconduct charges and its countercharges. Regan was re-elected by a wide margin earlier this year.

A law firm’s investigation corroborated several allegations that Regan threatened union officials in the wealth tax fight and did not support his claim that his rivals retaliated against him. Regan denied the accusations and said opponents of the tax were using them to undermine him.

There is also the question of whether Regan and SEIU-UHW leaders would have personally benefited from efforts to tax billionaires. As of mid-October, the billionaire’s tax committee owed the union nearly $6.3 million, including $3.6 million for canvassing and nearly $638,000 listed as campaign worker salaries, state records show.

SEIU-UHW chief of staff Suzanne Jimenez released a statement to the California Post saying a “political reckoning” is still coming for the billionaires.

“Propaganda funded by billionaires may mislead voters about the consequences of these cuts today, but as hospitals reduce services, emergency rooms close, and families lose access to care, the truth will become increasingly difficult to hide,” Jimenez said.

“If Sacramento fails to protect patients and deliver a real solution that requires billionaires to pay their fair share, medical professionals will pursue every avenue available, until returning to the polls in 2028 with a billionaires tax. »

A source in the California Democratic labor movement dismissed the allegations against Regan as infighting, adding that Regan’s biggest problem with voters this year was a divided progressive coalition.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Khanna campaigned aggressively for the tax and the state Democratic Party endorsed it, but Newsom, Becerra, Planned Parenthood and the California Teachers Association opposed it.

The split “gave billionaires a message to use beyond the losing message of ‘don’t tax us,'” the source said.

Political science professor Thad Kousser said the defeat of Proposition 40 would likely be seen nationally as “the death knell for the wealth tax movement.”

However, Kousser said a federal tax would be better positioned to accomplish what Regan wanted because billionaires can leave a state — an approach Newsom and Becerra have also advocated for.

Auto loan titan Don Hankey — who was among the billionaires who fled the state last year because of Proposition 40 — told the California Post he was “very happy” to see the tax go down.

Asked about the estimated tens of millions Regan’s union had squandered on election battles over the years, Hankey replied, “It hurts everyone.”

Despite the defeat of Prop. 40, Hankey said he only intended to visit his home in the Golden State.

“I still love California,” he said. “I’m also very happy in Las Vegas.”

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