Tom Steyer spent over $200 million of his own money to land third in the California governor’s race and Silicon Valley favorite Matt Mahan’s billionaire-backed campaign put him in sixth place. But in San Francisco, the moguls did just fine.
Every billionaire, multi-millionaire or big business that paid out enough to become a top-20 donor to San Francisco’s primary won their contests:
- Chris Larsen, the crypto billionaire and No. 1 donor to the June races, helped beat back Prop. D, the “Overpaid CEO” tax, with a $700,000 spend; he also helped pass Prop. A (the earthquake bond) and Prop. B (term limits).
- Michael Moritz, a tech venture capitalist and the financier of the San Francisco Standard, gave $625,000 to tank Prop. D and $250,000 to elect Alan Wong in District 4, alongside funds for Prop. B.
- Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the realtor- and tech-backed interest group that’s long interceded in city races, put $860,000 into killing Prop. D, and a token $5,000 into Prop. B.
- Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder who has reportedly taken a sharp turn to the right, put in another $500,000 to successfully beat back the Overpaid CEO tax.
- And a host of businesses and wealthy individuals — from San Francisco-based companies like Visa and the Gap to DoorDash CEO Tony Xu to the SF Believes PAC bankrolled by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s allies — all spent six-figure sums on measures that won. The bulk of the group’s spending went to defeating the Overpaid CEO tax.
Of note: Moritz did however lose out in the governor race. He contributed a total of $3 million to Matt Mahan’s campaign, which fell flat by election day.
The lone exception in San Francisco was Saikat Chakrabarti, the self-stylized class traitor who shelled out more than $10 million in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to replace Nancy Pelosi: He lost to Connie Chan and, as of the latest totals, received only 18 percent of the vote to her 30 percent.
“Money goes really far and it buys name ID and it can totally sway public opinion,” said Catie Stewart, a political consultant. “But it’s not the be all and end all.”
Chakrabarti’s sums did not help him. While he had the resources to get his message across and pay hundreds of canvassers $45 an hour, ultimately, his campaign failed to resonate with most San Francisco voters.
Chakrabarti came in as a total outsider, and pitched himself as anti-establishment to constituents who, it turns out, were not anti-establishment at the polls.
“The money helps get the message out — it’s not in and of itself a predictor of who is going to win,” said Stewart, who works on political campaigns and was previously Senator Wiener’s communications director. Fundamentally, having more money isn’t helpful if the campaign message is off, and if a candidate doesn’t have the relationships with and endorsements from local officials, she explained.
A better predictor in this election, Stewart and other consultants said, was Mayor Daniel Lurie’s endorsement.
Lurie is riding a popularity high: From top to bottom of the ballot, every single measure or candidate he endorsed won in the June election.
“He’s had an unusually long honeymoon,” said political consultant David Ho. “I’ve never seen a mayor not have a sophomore slump.”
Perhaps crucially, where Lurie’s endorsement went, the money followed. The mayor’s endorsement did come with a cash injection to several campaigns, namely from the mayor-aligned SF Believes PAC that spent over $1 million in the June election.
The campaign against the Overpaid CEO tax, “Yes on C, No on D,” “didn’t even have a strategy, until the mayor fell onto their lap,” said Ho, who ran the competing campaign.
While ultimately the campaign with the most resources was able to capture voters in that race, “I think the mayor single-handedly took down D,” said Ho.
Now, the big question is what the mayor does next, according to Todd David, a consultant working on Wiener’s campaign.
With high approval ratings, “what does the mayor do?” David said. “Does he continue to play it safe, or does he really go for some big reforms in the city?”