Mayor Daniel Lurie’s package of three charter measures are the most expensive issues on the ballot, according to new campaign finance filings released Thursday.
The mayor’s committee pushing the three measures, “Clean Up City Hall,” has raised over $11 million so far. That is more than all the other local ballot measures combined this cycle, and comes from a host of wealthy donors, including several billionaires.
The three measures — Propositions D, E, and F — would make it harder to put measures on the ballot (Prop. D), give the city administrator more authority over the city’s contracts (Prop. E) and expand mayoral power (Prop. F).
Much of that money, $4.5 million, was already spent gathering signatures to qualify the measures. But a chunk of the rest is likely to be spent on advertising to tout the measures’ benefits far and wide; already, since July, the committee has spent $928,281 on digital ads. It has some $3.5 million cash on hand.
The three measures follow previous attempts to amend San Francisco’s charter.
In 2024, a proposed measure that would have expanded mayoral powers and overhauled the city’s commissions raised over $9 million, and failed spectacularly. That measure was backed by the political advocacy group then known as TogetherSF (and now SF Blueprint), then-mayoral candidate Mark Farrell and billionaire Michael Moritz, who spent heavily on the measure.
These new proposals, put forward by Mayor Lurie along with Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, are based on a report from SPUR, an urbanist think tank.
Opposition to the measures is limited: There is one committee registered against Prop. D, the measure that would raise the city’s signature threshold for qualifying a measure from two percent of the electorate to eight percent.
That committee, “Fair Access, No on D” has raised $110,700. Most of that, $80,000, came from TODCO, an affordable housing developer. It is an order of magnitude less money.
The new numbers come from filings released Thursday that show money raised between July 1 and September 19.
On par with previous election cycles, the filings show this November election is shaping up to be very expensive.
Fundraising for the ballot measures is staggering: Over $19 million is going toward the 10 measures on the ballot.
- Proposition H, the Muni parcel tax measure, has continued to receive large contributions from corporations based downtown and invested in San Francisco’s downtown recovery. Mayor Lurie’s committee supporting the measure has raised $5 million.
- No on G, the committee raising to keep Sunset Dunes park, has amassed at least $352,800 — over three times more than the Yes on G committee advocating to re-open the Great Highway to cars.
Other competitive races, including the supervisor races in districts 8 and 10, continue to draw in more money — and, in a more recent development, PAC money.
District 8
In District 8, supervisor hopeful Manny Yekutiel continues to stay well ahead of his opponents. Although only a small portion of his contributions were raised in the last reporting period, he remains in the lead with the most contributions.
Yekutiel has raised a total of $522,958, with only $13,517 in the most recent reporting period, in addition to $255,000 from the city’s public financing program. Gary McCoy, his chief rival, has raised $123,450 and has received $217,524 in public funds.
On top of that, a new PAC has started raising money to support Yekutiel. The committee, “Team Manny, Manny Yekutiel For Supervisor 2026,” has raised $104,000, including $50,000 from SF Believes, a Lurie-aligned PAC. Yekutiel also has the support of GrowSF, a political advocacy group that has spent at least $120,000 supporting his campaign.
That’s in spite of a sexual assault allegation made by Brad Joseph Chapin, a political activist and former Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club board member, which was first reported in The San Francisco Standard on June 30. Yekutiel has denied the allegation.
McCoy, however, has the support of several labor organizations, including a labor PAC representing several unions that has recently received most of its money from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents thousands of city workers. That PAC has spent some $228,000 backing his campaign.
PAC spending in support of McCoy is slightly more than that backing Yekutiel.
The other two candidates, Michael Nguyen and Darshini Patel, have raised $73,029 and $44,811, respectively.
According to Yekutiel, his campaign had raised so much that he stopped fundraising altogether. “The campaign stopped organized fundraising early in the summer when we exceeded our fundraising goals and raised all the funds that we expect to spend in this race, so that I could concentrate all of my time on communicating with voters,” said Yekutiel, in a statement.
Yekutiel also has the most left to spend: $441,000, more than triple his three opponents combined.
District 10
In District 10, PAC money has also flooded the supervisor race: Chris Larsen, a cryptocurrency billionaire, paid out $500,000 to a PAC, “From The Neighborhood, For The City, Supporting Theo Ellington For Supervisor 2026.”
The contribution was possibly the largest from an individual to a supervisor’s campaign in city history, and came as a surprise to Ellington: The two had only had “a couple of brief conversations” prior to the donation, Ellington said, and Ellington already had a strong fundraising lead before the gift.
That single contribution is more than Ellington’s candidate committee has received from contributions and public financing combined.
Larsen’s money went to an independent committee that cannot legally coordinate with Ellington’s campaign. So far, it has only spent $83,000 of the $500,000 it’s raised so far: $50,000 to a company named Them Apples LLC, for video (presumably for an ad) and another $25,000 in a contribution to the San Francisco Democratic Party, which has endorsed Ellington. The other $82,000 in PAC spending came from GrowSF’s committee.
Ellington’s two chief opponents, J.R. Eppler and DJ Brookter, have raised $59,000 and $85,000, respectively.
School board
In the school board race, eight candidates are vying for three seats and most have joined formal or informal slates: One, backed by GrowSF, is made up of school board president Phil Kim, customer-success manager Autumn Brown Garibay, and analyst Tim Tung, the brother of San Francisco Democratic Party Chair and GrowSF ally Nancy Tung.
Garibay and Kim have raised the most so far, and along with Tung, will benefit from GrowSF’s third-party spending: The group has pledged to pour in more money to the school board race in November than it did in June, when it shelled out $220,000 to support Kim. The group appears to eschew the connotation of a slate — they are not actively campaigning together — but GrowSF will spend to elect all three.
The other main slate is that of the teachers union, made up of community organizer Reina Loli-Tello, nonprofit executive Ryan Hazelton, and Virginia Cheung, a parent and nonprofit worker who was the union’s pick in June and finished second. (The union spent some $109,000 to back Cheung in the June election). Those three embrace the slate — its slogan is “Teachers vs. Billionaires” — and campaign closely together.
GrowSF
SF Parents Action
Teachers union
Phil Kim
Phil Kim
Virginia Cheung
Autumn Brown Garibay
Ryan Hazelton
Autumn Brown Garibay
Tim Tung
Alida Fisher
Reina Tello
GrowSF
Phil Kim
Autumn Brown
Garibay
Tim Tung
SF Parents Action
Autumn Brown
Garibay
Phil Kim
Alida Fisher
Teachers union
Reina Tello
Virginia Cheung
Ryan Hazelton
Two of the union’s picks, Reina Tello and Ryan Hazelton, have raised $20,000 and $31,000, respectively. The union has spent another $30,000 supporting both candidates. It will likely spend more.
Alida Fisher is part of the SF Parents Action slate, which also includes Kim and Garibay. Fisher is an incumbent, and has raised $4,000. Laurence Lee, the unaffiliated candidate, has raised $6,000.
About Prop. D: I am opposed to Prop D because I was homeless when I placed a ballot measure on the June 2018 special election under the 2% threshold rule. My measure lost but it was the same election where London Breed came out to be the eventual winner. My measure received 98,000 “Yes” votes to Breed’s approximate 97,000 first place votes. That said, why is San Francisco intent on making it harder for poor people to place their views on San Francisco resident harder?
I do not like long ballots. But Prop. D does not solve the problem. And do you think it is strange that no one wants to report on a once homeless man who has never been able to walk collecting 14,000 the signatures needed to place a measure on our SF Ballot? Wake up San Francisco. Wealthy San Franciscans are behind this measure and it will not prevent those long pesky ballots for you to read through. Do I have the answer? No. But I do know if Prop. D passes, I will not be able to alert San Francisco voters to the shenanigans of SF City Hall.
DEF = Elon Musk’s DOGE meets Dick Cheney’s unitary executive.
Revelation from old watcher of Power,
The needle in this haystack.
Pea under the Princess’ s mattress.
Only life saver for any incoming Progressive mayor.
Is the power of the Mayor of San Francisco to independently put items before the Public including Charter changes.
This power could allow an incoming Progressive mayor to rollback ALL of the Moderate reforms aimed at disempowering Majority Rule.
All the rest is ornamentation.
Why Lurie is giving up that power is a mystery to me.
One example:
Our best bet to reconnect the people of SF to our Police force is through reforms instituted by an elected Police Chief and I came damn near to getting Peskin and Lurie to include that plank in their election platforms two years ago.
I went at them because I don’t have the bandwidth or endurance to put that measure to the Voters through a costly Petition Drive.
Now, that will cost 4 times as much for the petition initiative.
Makes my head hurt.
At least I have a remedy for that.
Smoke some pot and go out and pick up some trash with Skippy in the lead.
go Niners !!
h.