![\"Man](\"https:\/\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/cropped-Joe-Rivano-Barros_avatar_1680539311-scaled-1.jpg\"){kind=avatar}
by\u00a0JOE RIVANO BARROS<\/a><\/strong> AUGUST 28, 2024 (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Dollar](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_7941-e1714504286386.png?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt\u2019s election season in San Francisco, and the money is pouring in: About $22 million<\/strong> has been raised for the November races so far, according to local filings, with much of that going into ballot measures and the race for the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About 69 percent<\/strong> of the money raised, or $15 million, comes from large donations \u2014 amounts over $1,000. Those donations, which are mostly made to political action committees to get around the city\u2019s $500 donation cap for candidates, are from a tiny minority of donors who represent less than 2 percent<\/strong> of the total contributions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The remaining 98 percent<\/strong> of contributions constitute much smaller amounts \u2014 on average, $292 apiece \u2014 and they add up to $6.9 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those small-dollar donations are also bolstered by another $5.2 million in public financing<\/a> from the city, which awards candidates six-to-one matching funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stay informed on local elections \u2014 sign up for Mission Local’s free daily newsletter<\/strong> today!Sign up<\/p>\n\n\n\n With those matching city funds, the total money raised in the San Francisco election is more than $27 million<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is the big-money donors we\u2019re closely tracking. As of Aug. 7, any donation of $1,000 or more must be disclosed within 24 hours, setting off alarm bells in the RSS feeds of campaign consultants across the city \u2014 and our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To follow the most noteworthy spending, Mission Local is starting an occasional dispatch that will aggregate information from campaign-finance filings: Big contributions, new PACs, notable spending and everything in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For our first dispatch, we\u2019re noting all donations in August since the requirement to immediately disclose large contributions came into effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, no surprise: Donors from Silicon Valley and the finance industry are heavily represented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Aug. 7, some 64 percent<\/strong> of big donations (excluding Daniel Lurie<\/strong>\u2019s personal giving, which is gargantuan and skews results) came from the tech or finance industries. That includes $250,000 from WhatsApp founder Jan Koum<\/strong> to a pro-Lurie PAC, $100,000 from DoorDash CEO Tony Xu<\/strong> to a pro-London Breed<\/strong> PAC, and about $100,000 from partners at the startup accelerator Y Combinator to mayoral candidate Mark Farrell<\/strong>\u2019s ballot measure committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PACs<\/p>\n\n\n\n $137,585<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lurie<\/p>\n\n\n\n $1,585,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finance<\/p>\n\n\n\n $307,754<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tech<\/p>\n\n\n\n $690,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n 50%<\/p>\n\n\n\n 22%<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unions<\/p>\n\n\n\n $118,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n Muhlfeld<\/p>\n\n\n\n Patterson<\/p>\n\n\n\n $101,523<\/p>\n\n\n\n Boschetto<\/p>\n\n\n\n family<\/p>\n\n\n\n $67,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tech<\/p>\n\n\n\n $690,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finance<\/p>\n\n\n\n $307,754<\/p>\n\n\n\n PACs<\/p>\n\n\n\n $137,585<\/p>\n\n\n\n 44%<\/p>\n\n\n\n 20%<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unions<\/p>\n\n\n\n $118,000<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: San Francisco Ethics Commission, as of Aug. 27.<\/a> Chart by Junyao Yang.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n Also in the mix: A former Tesla engineer, Dylan Hirsch-Schell<\/strong>, who is self-funding his race for the mayor\u2019s office; the ex-CEO of Twitch, Emmett Shear<\/strong>, who has given $75,000 to close off the Great Highway to cars; Lyft<\/strong>, which is spending five figures to defeat a tax on ride-sharing and driverless cars; and Ron Conway<\/strong>, the venture capitalist and longtime Ed Lee<\/strong> and Breed financier, who has put in $110,000 to pass a measure reforming business taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lurie\u2019s family is responsible for some 16 percent ($3.3 million) of the total raised for the November races so far. That dominance is even more marked when looking at recent fundraising; 50 percent ($1.6 million) of donations above $1,000 since Aug. 7 came from Lurie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yep, Lurie donated $1.6 million to his own campaign this month, a sum that eclipses all else, so we\u2019ve removed him from the calculation of percentages above in order to note which other players are most influential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are the big-money moves from Aug. 7 through 27<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lurie\u2019s family are by far the single biggest campaign donors with $3.3 million. But Lurie is not doing it all alone: <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Mission Local<\/em> noted on Friday<\/a>, Lurie put another $1.6 million<\/a> of his own money into his race this month; he is now leading the pack, with $3 million raised, 73 percent of which came from his own pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few other candidates are also dipping into their own pockets: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The donors behind Neighbors for a Better San Francisco<\/strong>, a political influence group that has quickly become the top spender in city politics<\/a>, are firmly in Farrell\u2019s camp: Many of the nonprofit\u2019s biggest patrons \u2014 like Bill Oberndorf,<\/strong> Louise Muhfeld<\/strong> Patterson<\/strong>, and Tom Chavez<\/strong> \u2014 are giving individually to Farrell\u2019s ballot-measure committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farrell\u2019s ballot measure has now received about $1.4 million<\/a>. Previously, it took in $500,000<\/a> from the family of Thomas Coates<\/strong> (a Republican donor and rent-control foe<\/a>, and a Neighbors donor), $200,000<\/a> from billionaire investor John Pritzker <\/strong>(another Neighbors donor), and $100,000<\/a> from the family of tech investor Alexander Slusky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Breed\u2019s PAC has received more than $1 million in donations<\/a>, much of it from well-heeled individuals like the cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen<\/strong>, who has put in $400,000, and the billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg<\/strong>, who put in $200,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n More recently: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Joining them is Quinn Delaney<\/strong>, a millionaire philanthropist with an interesting donation history: The board chair<\/a> of the criminal justice-focused Akonadi Foundation<\/strong>, she first gave Breed\u2019s opponent Mark Leno<\/strong> $500 in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She then switched teams and donated $25,000 to a pro-Breed PAC that year and another $500 to Breed directly. She is now firmly in Breed\u2019s camp: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Delaney, for her part, also opposed<\/em> the 2022 recall of Chesa Boudin<\/strong>, chipping in $50,000 to keep him in office. She gave $50,000 to a PAC backing moderate supervisor candidates in 2018, and has given millions to Democratic candidates and liberal causes across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Money has started pouring into some of the 15 propositions (A through O!) on this year\u2019s ballot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The effort to defeat Prop. B<\/a>, the March ballot measure that would have tied police staffing levels to future revenue, has officially shuttered<\/a>. But its remaining funds will go towards another measure in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The anti-B PAC is not the only political action committee formed for a previous San Francisco election that is transferring funds for use in November:<\/p>\n\n\n\n TogetherSF\u2019s Prop. D, the measure that would cap the number of city commissions at 65 and expand the power of both the mayor and police chief, is getting help from a group familiar to close watchers of campaign finance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, in parks and cars news:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, on the measure to spur the city\u2019s downtown recovery:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abandoning a years-long tradition of steering clear of politics, Y Combinator<\/strong> is now taking a more active role in its home city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Its CEO Garry Tan<\/strong>, who infamously tweeted<\/a> \u201cDie slow motherfuckers\u201d to seven progressive city supervisors, is a committed enemy<\/a> of progressives in San Francisco and sits on the board of public pressure group GrowSF<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tan has spent $50,850 on the November election, $50,000 of that going to a GrowSF PAC set up to defeat Supervisor Dean Preston<\/strong>, the city\u2019s lone socialist representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Tan, Y Combinator executives have stepped into the fray:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2015, donors who listed Y Combinator as an employer have given more than $1.1 million<\/a> to San Francisco politics \u2014 inevitably an undercount, since donors are often (deliberately) imprecise when naming their employer on financial disclosures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anything notable we\u2019ve missed? Email me at joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com<\/a> and we\u2019ll get it into a future dispatch.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n joe.rivanobarros@missionlocal.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of recent $1,000-plus donations comes from tech, finance by\u00a0JOE RIVANO BARROS AUGUST 28, 2024 (MissionLocal.org) It\u2019s election season in San Francisco, and the money is pouring in: About $22 million has been raised for the November races so far, according to local filings, with much of that going into ballot measures… Continue reading ![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mission-local-logo-300x300.jpg?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1\"){kind=logo}
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Paradise.September\"\/](\"https:\/\/cdn.broadstreetads.com\/assets\/d889c927-99d9-4d3a-ad82-d329b93742d7.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"SR.](\"https:\/\/cdn.broadstreetads.com\/assets\/c5b173b6-ea7a-474e-ad52-735f71db3002.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n$1,000-plus donations made in San Francisco since Aug. 7, excluding Lurie at the bottom<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Money, money, money for Daniel Lurie<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Lurie\u2019s not the only one self-funding<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Neighbors\u2019 top donors propping up Farrell<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Breed gets tech, philanthropy funds<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Donations just starting for 15 propositions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Y Combinator steps into politics<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nMORE ELECTION 2024 COVERAGE<\/mark><\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Dan\u2019s](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_0197-scaled-e1695767292205.jpg?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDan\u2019s dollars: Lurie drops $1.3M more into his own mayoral campaign<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"See](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_3705-scaled-e1724811051604.jpg?resize=1200%2C900&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSee how they run: Outer Sunset merchants grill Safa\u00ed on Great Highway<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"District](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newspack-missionlocal.s3.amazonaws.com\/mission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/District-5-Banner.png?resize=800%2C600&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nDistrict 5 candidates weigh in (or don\u2019t) on District Attorney race<\/a><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
JOE RIVANO BARROSSENIOR EDITOR<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n