by JOE RIVANO BARROS and KELLY WALDRON
FEBRUARY 2, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)
Candidates trying to oust progressives from San Francisco’s branch of the Democratic Party, which maintains the party’s imprimatur on local election endorsements, have raised almost four times as much money as their progressive rivals, according to new campaign finance filings.
San Francisco Democrats for Change, a coalition of 24 candidates, is vying to take control of the Democratic County Central Committee in the March 5, 2024, election, and have raised at least $1,160,371 as of Jan. 20, filings released Thursday by the Ethics Commission showed.
Rival progressives, on the other hand, who are organized as the Labor and Working Families slate, have raised just $313,955 in the same period — 27 percent of the their rivals’ take.
Data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Amounts include all donations of $100 or larger as of Jan. 20 and any donations above $1,000 as of February 1. Information on which candidates are running for each slate was obtained from their respective websites, Labor and Working Families and SF Dems for Change. Chart by Kelly Waldron. For the optimal experience, use the desktop version.
The 32-member DCCC — which progressives have controlled since 2016 — is “the most insider San Francisco political thing you can imagine,” said Jim Ross, a 30-year political consultant in the city who now focuses on progressive candidates and causes. Yet, it’s incredibly important: The November presidential election will turn out a wide swath of the city, including voters ill-informed about local politics.
The official endorsement of the Democratic Party’s local chapter will be significant for the races on the ballot — supervisors, propositions, mayoral candidates and more.
Voters are “looking for information from a trusted source, and there’s no more trusted source in San Francisco politics than the Democratic Party,” said Ross.
Yet money for the candidates trying to oust the progressives may not necessarily translate into votes. March elections bring in a smaller portion of the electorate — 49 percent on average since 2012, compared to 80 percent for presidential races. The sort of voters who show up in March may have largely already made up their minds.
“The people who vote on it care, and they’re Democratic activists, so they already know how they’re going to vote,” said Ross. “I don’t know how much money actually matters in that race.”
Added David Latterman, a retired consultant on the moderate side: “Money really can’t overcome name recognition in a race this down-ticket, in a race where someone has to check off a dozen names.”
DCCC fundraising helps those running for supe
Four of the candidates for DCCC (“D-triple-C”) are also running in November’s supervisorial elections, when half the Board of Supervisors is up for grabs. Running for DCCC in addition to elected office serves as a financial and publicity springboard.
By spending and campaigning now, those four candidates — District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, District 1 hopeful Marjan Philhour, District 5 candidate Bilal Mahmood and District 9 contender Trevor Chandler — can meet and greet potential voters, mail flyers to their homes and increase their name recognition.
The race, Latterman said, is a means to “getting your name out there and a gauge of how popular you are in your district.”
The contest also allows candidates to evade the $500 contribution limit for their supervisor races: The central committee is regulated at the state level, so candidates can accept unlimited funds from individuals and corporations, the latter of whom cannot give in city contests at all.
The bulk of the giving to the oppositional DCCC candidates has gone toward just three candidates: Mahmood ($220,650), Philhour ($176,145) and Michael Lai ($101,636).
Both Mahmood and Philhour are running for supervisor. Mahmood, a former Obama staffer who lost a State Assembly race in 2022, has emphasized faster housing construction, public-private partnerships to address homelessness and staffing up frontline workers, including police.
Philhour has emphasized public safety and street cleanliness in her campaign, calling for more officers, increased arrests of drug users and dealers and the removal of homeless encampments.
Chandler, another candidate in the oppositional DCCC slate, is running in District 9 in an open seat. He has raised $32,836 as part of his DCCC race which, added to his fundraising totals specifically for the District 9 race, makes him the candidate with the most money raised in the contest.
Among progressives, Sal Rosselli, the founder and president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (which, despite its name, largely represents workers in California) is leading the pack, with $63,661 fundraised.
District 1 Supervisor Chan has raised $37,135, while Patrick Bell of UA Local 38, the plumbers and steamfitters union, has raised $36,248.
Tech donors key source of money…
By far the biggest contributors to the slate of candidates trying to unseat progressives are millionaire and billionaire tech donors.
Chris Larsen, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Ripple, has given $80,000 to three candidates, Philhour, Mahmood and Luis Zamora. Larsen is a heavy donor to this year’s races and, historically, to moderate causes in San Francisco.
He has given $931,000 in the 2024 elections, largely supporting Mayor London Breed’s re-election ($250,500) and her two ballot measures, Proposition E ($250,000) for police deregulation and Proposition F ($250,000) for welfare drug screening.
Jeremy Liew, a venture capitalist, has given $71,000 to five candidates, Philhour, Mahmood, Lai, Peter Lee and Lanier Coles. Liew has given $122,000 total for 2024 contests, most of it towards Prop. E ($50,000) and the DCCC races.
Ron Conway, venture capitalist and the preferred financier of the late Mayor Ed Lee, has given $41,000 to three candidates: Catherine Stefani, Philhour and Mahmood. Conway, a frequent campaign donor, is giving heavily this election cycle, too: $168,000 for 2024 races, most of it ($100,000) towards Prop. E.
Y Combinator, the famed startup accelerator based in San Francisco, is well-represented among donors: At least $82,000 comes from those who marked the incubator as their employer, likely an undercount, not including those previously associated with the firm.
Jessica Livingston, one of the firm’s co-founders, has given $20,000 to Mahmood, while her husband Paul Graham, another co-founder, has given $10,000 to two candidates, Chandler and Nancy Tung.
Livingston, for her part, is spending large in November, too: $50,000 towards unseating District 5 supervisor Dean Preston; Graham is giving $500 each to Chandler and Philhour’s supervisorial races.
Garry Tan, the current Y Combinator CEO whose online rant this weekend prefaced real-world threats to several supervisors, has given $12,000 to four candidates, Mahmood, Tung, Lai and Jade Tu. Tan is heavily involved in San Francisco politics: He frequently rails against progressive politicians in the city, hosts fundraisers for their moderate opponents and has urged fellow tech executives to organize and “retake” San Francisco.
Tan has given $64,850 towards 2024 races, the majority ($50,000) towards unseating his bête noire, Preston, from District 5.
…while progressives rely on unions
On the progressive side, the biggest donors are not individuals, but unions — albeit at a far lower scale.
IFPTE 21, a public sector workers’ union, has given $27,500 towards the slate, largely to District 1 Supervisor Chan ($25,500). IFPTE is also spending $200,000 towards Proposition B, increasing police staffing levels.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers has spent some $10,000 towards electing its president, Rosselli. SEIU 2015, a caretakers’ union, has spent $6,000 towards the slate, while a handful of other unions have spent $5,000 or less each.
JOE RIVANO BARROSSENIOR EDITOR
joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com
Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight. He attended Stanford University for political science and worked at Mission Local as a reporter after graduating. He then spent time in advocacy as a partner for the strategic communications firm The Worker Agency. He rejoined Mission Local as an editor in 2023.More by Joe Rivano Barros
KELLY WALDRON
Kelly is Irish and French and grew up in Dublin and Luxembourg. She studied Geography at McGill University and worked at a remote sensing company in Montreal, making maps and analyzing methane data, before turning to journalism. She recently graduated from the Data Journalism program at Columbia Journalism School.More by Kelly Waldron
