SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley’s effort to place Matt Mahan in the governor’s mansion is stalling out amid recriminations, donor frustration and second-guessing.
The San Jose mayor entered California’s wide-open governor’s race as tech’s chosen champion: a centrist Democrat with founder credentials, elite backers and promises of tens of millions of dollars to catapult him through the June primary.
But his underwhelming campaign has become a cautionary tale about an untested candidate and inexperienced donors chasing a vision that has failed to materialize with a week left — a humbling experience for some of Mahan’s backers in tech, many of them relative newcomers to state politics who are working to build enduring political power in California…