With Election Day only two months away, mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie is stepping on the gas: The nonprofit founder and Levi Strauss heir dropped another $1.25 million into his campaign just this week, bringing his own total contribution to his mayoral bid up to $4.73 million, according to the latest campaign filing.
A staggering total of nearly $33.85 million has thus far been poured into the November election and Lurie, a first-time aspirant for City Hall, has personally contributed about 14 percent of that sum.
Largely self-financed campaign and deep-pocketed Pro-Lurie PAC
As of Sept. 4, Lurie’s campaign has raised a total of some $5.55 million, about 85 percent from his own pocket. The other 15 percent comes from donors who gave up to $500 apiece — a cap set by the city, with the exception that the candidates can pour unlimited amounts of their own money into their campaigns.
With his largely self-financed effort, Lurie, the founder of the homelessness nonprofit, Tipping Point Community, and the wealthiest candidate in the race, has outpaced his four major opponents in fundraising: Mayor London Breed has raised $1.85 million, President of the Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin has raised $1.13 million, former supervisor and caretaker mayor Mark Farrell some $1.12 million, and District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí some $980,000.
Lurie is also the only candidate in the mayoral race who self-donated more than the $500 cap, while all his opponents self-financed no more than $500 (Safaí only donated $150 to his own campaign.) This prohibits Lurie from getting public financing — a six-to-one match from the city for small-dollar donations.
Lurie has previously said that this is his attempt to save the city money. His campaign manager Han Zou, while not directly addressing Lurie’s self-financing, asserted that Lurie “hasn’t spent the last 20 years running for office like his opponents but it’s clear voters see that as an asset.”
In addition to funds raised for his own candidacy committee, Lurie is also backed by the political action committee, “Believe in SF, Lurie for Mayor 2024,” which has raised some $5.45 million. The pro-Lurie PAC was created 23 days after Lurie filed for candidacy last September.
The PAC, which can accept unlimited funds, has been receiving money from deep-pocketed donors such as WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, who gave $500,000, and biotech investment firm owner Oleg Nodelman, who gave $250,000. It was also partially funded by Lurie’s relatives — $1 million from his billionaire philanthropist mother Miriam “Mimi” Haas and another $100,000 from his brother Ari Lurie.
Strong influx of funds last December and in August
Lurie’s campaign fundraising has been a steady stream, until recently — when the candidate injected $2.89 million in August and another $1.25 million in September into his own campaign.
His PAC had a spike last December — some $2.4 million, including a $1 million gift from Lurie’s mother and $200,000 from investment firm Sixth Street Partners CEO Alan Waxman.
Funds raised every month for both Lurie’s campaign and PAC since the campaign launch as of August
$3M
Lurie’s campaign
funds raised
$2M
$1M
PAC funds raised
0
Sept 23
Dec 23
Mar 24
June 24
Aug 24
$3M
Lurie’s campaign
funds raised
$2M
$1M
PAC funds
raised
0
Aug
24
June
24
Dec
23
Sept
23
Mar
24
Note: The chart does not include Lurie’s latest contribution of $1.25 million to his campaign in September 2024.
Graphic by Xueer Lu. Source: San Francisco Ethics Commission.
Lurie is reliant on his homebase for support
Raised in Presidio Heights, Lurie is popular in his home neighborhood as a candidate. The majority of his donors who contributed up to $500 are from neighborhoods nearby, such as Pacific Heights, the Inner Richmond, Russian Hill, and the Marina.
But the candidate has the fewest supporters from the southern part of the city, including Bayview, Visitacion Valley, Portola, the Excelsior, Ingleside, and Lake Merced.
Lurie's campaign: Well-paid staff and consultants
Some $1.48 million has been spent by Lurie's campaign — nearly 27 percent of its funds raised. The heaviest spending is on campaign workers' salaries and contractors for some $596,000, according to Lurie's latest campaign filing, released in July.
However, this does not include expenditures in the past couple of months. As the race entered its final stretch, Lurie opened its Chinatown campaign organizing headquarters at 571 Clay St. just this morning — a third base after its Irving Street headquarters that opened in July in the Inner Sunset and its original low-profile office on Mission Street.
The campaign also spent $212,981 on polling — about 14 percent of its total expenditure — and another $50,969 on a company called VR Research Inc. that specializes in opposition research.
PACs are not allowed to coordinate candidates or pay campaign workers, but can help the candidate do temperature checks through polling.
Data from a new poll, which was commissioned by the PAC, shows what his campaign calls "a virtual tie with Breed." Lurie ties in second place with Farrell at 19 percent for the first choice vote, where Breed leads at 30 percent. But Lurie is in first place for the second choice vote at 26 percent, where Farrell comes in second at 15 percent.
Pro-Lurie PAC spends heavily on advertising
The PAC backing Lurie has spent some $2.91 million — more than half of its war chest, according to the campaign filings. And it has spent heavily on advertising.
For Lurie, who is seeking office for the first time, name recognition is crucial. Some $2.39 million of the expenditure to date — about 82 percent — went through The Media Company LLC, a company providing services in preparing and placing advertising.
The PAC spent $629,144 on mailers and $484,182 on billboards. Some $79,949 went to Chinese newspaper outlets including the World Journal, Wind Newspaper, and Sing Tao Daily — about 28 percent of the total $285,219 spent on newspaper ads.
Lurie's campaign, on the other hand, only spent $3,168 to place online ads on Wind’s website and $1,820 on printed ads in The Bay Area Reporter, a weekly newspaper serving the LGBTQ+ communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Jim Ross, a veteran political strategist in the Bay Area, does not think the PAC is overdoing it. Ross thinks most people are good at tuning out advertising. "A person in an urban setting sees on average 5,000 advertisements per day," he said. "How much do people actually remember?"
Ross describes San Francisco as a "retail town," meaning that most successful political campaigns are the ones where people have direct contact with the candidates themselves. And that explains the countless meet-and-greets and visits to shopkeepers.
"When people start complaining they are doing too much, they are just doing enough," Ross said about Lurie’s aggressive advertising — the billboards, the mailers and the ads online.
"They are not just competing with London Breed and Mark Farrell," Ross added, "but also competing with Coca-Cola."
I’m liking Lurie’s attack ads against Farrell. When our opponents fight amongst ourselves, we sit back and enjoy the show.
Every time one of those non-skippable YouTube ads of his come on I just exit the video and then go down to history and pick it up again.
Daniel, here’s a suggestion: tone it down a little.