The San Francisco Democratic Party has raised more money, per resident and registered Democratic voter, than any other local party in California as it enters the 2026 election season, according to campaign finance data.
The local party, known as the Democratic County Central Committee, has raised $850,100 in donations this year, as of Sept. 1. That’s about $256,000 per 100,000 registered Democratic voters in a city with just over 530,000 of them, according to California Secretary of State data.
The majority of the local party’s donations came from just three donors and political pressure groups that have bankrolled the party for the last two years, ever since progressives were voted out in 2024 and replaced by moderates backed by well-heeled tech executives.
The financial disclosures come as scrutiny of the party is high: In a pair of controversial votes last week, members decided to buck the state party and oppose the California billionaire tax, and to endorse District 8 supervisor candidate Manny Yekutiel, despite sexual assault allegations against him and a monthslong, in-house investigation that ultimately stated the party had no jurisdiction over the matter.
The San Francisco Dems are not the richest local party across the state in absolute terms: Los Angeles and San Diego counties have raised more money overall, and have more cash on hand.
But those are much larger counties, and the San Francisco party’s per-Democrat fundraising surpassed any other local Democratic Party chapter. That’s even more, per-Democrat, than the California Democratic Party, the state committee that has received over $20 million donations to spend in statewide races.
Even if measured per person using a county’s total population, the San Francisco Dems come out on top across the state.
Eric Jaye, a longtime political consultant, said San Francisco has always been an outlier when it comes to money in politics. “We’ve got more billionaires than LA does, more density of political clubs than LA does,” Jaye said. “We have more politics and more people who want to spend on politics.”
Cash on hand is a slightly different story: The San Francisco Democratic Party had over $556,000 in the bank as of June 30, about $167,000 per 100,000 registered Democrats. It ranked third among major counties in California, following Fresno and San Mateo counties, which have fewer Democratic voters.
The San Francisco Dems’ fundraising this year came from just a few wealthy backers:
- Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the deep-pocketed political group backed by real estate and tech titans, gave $189,000 to the party, most of it in May ahead of the June election.
- Chris Larsen, the billionaire co-founder of Ripple, gave $181,000.
- Another $139,000 came from SF Believes, the political action committee formed by Mayor Daniel Lurie’s wealthy allies including the MAGA WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum.
More cash is expected to flow ahead of the November races after the party voted to oppose the billionaire tax, which happened only after it changed its bylaws in order to split from the state party.
Billionaires in the city and across the state are spending heavily to defeat the tax, called Prop. 40, which would issue a 5 percent levy on those who have more than $1 billion in wealth.
Those donors can now give to the San Francisco Democratic Party, which could fund slate cards to oppose the measure — while also advertising the local party’s preferred candidates and ballot measures on those pieces of mail.
Much of the local party’s power lies in its endorsements — it can give the official “Democratic Party” imprimatur to those running for office in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 8 to 1. To win that advantage, over $2 million was poured into the DCCC race in 2024 largely by tech donors to support a slate of candidates that ousted the progressives, who had held control since 2016.
“The DCCC is the most important election of 2024,” the GrowSF voter guide wrote at the time. “A lot of voters turn to the SF Democratic Party voter guide for their endorsements… but this committee is currently controlled by far left, anti-growth political insiders.”
This, suggested Jaye, is why “the moderate faction fought so hard to gain control of the Democratic Party.”
That slate won 18 out of the 24 seats up for grabs and outspent its opponents 3.2 to 1 in that race. Most of the money that delivered that victory came from tech donors like Larsen and venture capitalists Jeremy Liew and Ron Conway.
Since then, the local party has voted to endorse candidates and ballot measures that align with its more moderate, public safety and business-friendly priorities. It backed the mayor’s preferred supervisor candidates, Alan Wong and Stephen Sherrill, and opposed the Overpaid CEO tax in the June election. Voters were in agreement: They elected both candidates, and voted the tax down.
Today, some members of the San Francisco Democratic Party also represent tech interests more directly.
Michael Lai, a candidate for District 11 supervisor in 2024, now works as a government liaison for Anthropic — a lobbyist. Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler both work for Flock, the surveillance camera company behind the city’s Real Time Investigation Center, which uses a system to help SFPD track down suspects. They are also lobbyists.
Ho, a public affairs manager at Flock Safety, recently blocked a resolution at the party that called for oversight and transparency for Flock surveillance cameras and asked party members not to speak to the press about it, the San Francisco Standard reported.
