Party buses, DJs, boats: Scotty Jacobs livin’ large on District 5 campaign trail

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Scotty Jacobs had a fun Oracle Park day in late September.

On Sept. 26, Jacobs, who is running for District 5 supervisor, held a campaign event at Cooperstown S.F., the “mini version” of the Baseball Hall of Fame, which sits across the street from the baseball stadium. 

He invited supporters to view a collection of sports paraphernalia, and said “One of the owners of the Giants is opening up the team’s private museum across from the ballpark for supporters of my campaign … this is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.” The private museum costs $5,000 to rent.

Jacobs charged $50 to $500 for tickets, which included an open bar and hors d’oeuvres. That day, Jacobs spent $4,278 at Momo’s, the sports bar next to the baseball museum, to cater for the 80 attendees, according to campaign finance filings. 

The fundraising event is part of a pattern: Finance filings show that Jacobs has been spending lavishly while on the campaign trail, using far more of his funds than rivals on parties, food, and ride-hail trips.

Between June and October, Jacobs racked up $3,272 in Lyft or Uber expenses and $2,969 on food for various staff and donor meetings, going to restaurants like Absinthe, Lers Ros, and Ebisu. Jacobs’ fundraisers are pricey, too: He disclosed spending $2,610 on Busin’ party buses, $495 on a Gambit Lounge fundraiser, and $4,278 on the Cooperstown S.F. event.

On Oct. 12, Jacobs held a five-hour Fleet Week rooftop party fundraiser on the Klamath, a historic ferry near Pier 9, featuring house DJ Gene Farris. Tickets went for $50 to $150 and included a pitch: “Scotty is running to represent the next generation of San Franciscans — including making San Francisco the DANCE MUSIC CAPITAL OF THE WEST COAST!” The Klamath can be rented for between $850 to $1,500 an hour — a $4,250 to $7,500 expense for Jacobs’ party. 

A Sept. 2 Instagram post shows another boat party for Jacobs featuring a DJ, dance floor, and EDM music on a yacht ride through the bay.

Jacobs has not disclosed the costs of renting either the boats or Cooperstown S.F., but said invoices were incoming for future filings. He said he would not characterize his campaign spending as “lavish;” rather, he has had to reach out to residents in a much shorter timeframe than other contenders, since he entered the race on May 20.

Big fundraising events, he said, are a way to do that.

“The party bus and Cooperstown — all of those have been fundraisers; they haven’t been parties,” Jacobs said. He said his campaign has “been able to build a war chest” to compete with Preston and Bilal Mahmood, another contender, largely through such events. “We have to be really creative with the ways we raise large amounts of money quickly.” 

And they have been successful, he said: “Every single one of our events has more than made back what it costs to put on.”

According to campaign finance filings, Jacobs had fundraised $73,597 as of Oct. 19, the latest date for which numbers are available. Preston fundraised $172,773 in the same period, while Mahmood fundraised $236,854.

The ride-hails, Jacobs added, were a necessity: Sometimes his campaign events require him to move across the district quickly, and Lyfts are the fastest way to do that.

Still, Jacobs’ campaign activity is unusual: Neither Mahmood nor Preston has spent similar amounts on travel, food, or fundraisers. Preston spent $217.25 on a Sept. 25 karaoke fundraiser with Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, while Mahmood reported $500 for a fundraiser at the Mission cafe Manny’s, and another $230 on Safeway and Walgreens expenses.

Both Mahmood’s and Preston’s fundraising expenses almost entirely consisted of processing fees. Their campaign funds were usually more conventional — staff salaries, consulting costs, fliers and mailers, and digital ads, for instance.

Jacobs, too, is spending on getting his name out there, but the filings show that at least $13,624 of his total expenses — nine percent — was spent on rideshare, party buses, food, and fundraisers. He has dubbed himself the only “nightlife candidate” running in this year’s supervisorial races, and has posted himself campaigning at the Portola Music Festival and Outside Lands.

“I hope they call me Scotty ‘Party Zone’ Jacobs when this is over,” he wrote on his Instagram.

For his part, Jacobs said his campaign has had an “unconventional approach” to fundraising “that has enabled us to get that level of traction.”

Campaign finance experts said such spending is not illegal, as long as the events are legitimate campaign fundraisers. But the San Francisco Standard recently reported that Assemblymember Matt Haney has held similarly lavish fundraisers and events at 49ers, Giants, and Warriors games, and a state watchdog has since stepped in to investigate.

The Standard previously reported Jacobs’ spending on ride-hail trips in their Power Play newsletter. 

Jacobs is running to the right of Preston, who is the city’s lone democratic socialist representative. He has a ranked-choice alliance with Mahmood, Preston’s biggest rival. Autumn Looijen, a 2022 school board recall activist, is also running to replace Preston.

Jacobs’ campaign has emphasized law-and-order approaches like sweeping homeless encampments, deporting fentanyl dealers, and hiring more police officers. He has pushed for more market-rate housing construction, and lambasted Preston for what he calls thousands of units of blocked housing.

District 5 is the city’s second most-expensive supervisorial contest: $1,581,584 has been spent by candidates or political action committees in the district, as of Oct. 28, compared to $2,033,793 for District 1, and $1,421,708 for District 11.

The District 5 seat is one of several that could remake the composition of the Board of Supervisors and shift it from progressive hands; Preston is a key progressive vote. The district is more progressive than the rest of the city, however, and one of the few — along with Districts 8 and 9 — that voted against expanding policing powers during the March election.