Mr. Gordon said he has spent about $44,000 for the billboards. “He’s not there for the state of California,” Mr. Gordon said of the Democratic governor. (About 80 percent of the water California uses goes toward agriculture.) “There are a lot of farmers under severe stress, and a lot of farmers who are going under business this year because they don’t have any water,” said Mr. Lundberg, who backs Mr. Newsom in the election. Many farmers of color also rent their farmland from other farmers who may reduce the renters’ water supply rather than limit their own.
