Decoding D3 fundraising reports for fun

What do fundraising reports say about a candidate? With the D3 race for the Downtown San Jose seat nearing a close, and seeing misinformation being spread, I wanted to share my perspective.

First, we are fortunate to have two good candidates in Gabby Chavez-Lopez and Anthony Tordillos. In full disclosure, I support Gabby. That said, I'm interested in helping people make decisions based on good information, something increasingly difficult given the lack of high quality local journalism and the barrage(s) of misleading political mailers/texts and social media. Fortunately, fundraising reports can help triangulate information.

Let's start with the basics. Anthony has raised $360k and Gabby $245k. So the big headline at first glance is that Anthony has outraised Gabby, which for insiders is an indicator of candidate viability. If you dig a little deeper though, you’ll see that Anthony has given himself $200,000 in addition to a $20,000 loan.

That means Gabby has raised $245,000 from friends, colleagues and others while Anthony has raised $140,000 from that same type of field.

This is an important distinction for two reasons.

Reason #1 - The advantage of time spent NOT fundraising

As a candidate, if you don’t have to worry as much about raising money, you have more freedom and time.

On a personal note, this is familiar to me because when I ran for Water District, my opponent also self-funded to the tune of $70,000. This essentially means I, and in this case, Gabby, started the race behind the starting line. Raising money is incredibly labor intensive. Individual phone calls, texts, organizing your fundraising lists…When you can self-fund, you can focus on other campaign related tasks. As is the case with money, it’s a leg up.

Another similarity in the D3 race and my race was that my opponent had also made his money from a career in tech, which begs another question. In Silicon Valley where we're seeing more folks who make a lot of money in tech turn their attention to public service, spending their own money to get elected, what does that mean for a democracy? Sadly, it's not news that the wealthy are able to run and get elected but we have a different flavor in Silicon Valley in that our wealth is from tech. What are the implications of that?

I'm not saying it's good or bad -- many conclusions can be drawn -- but I'll turn to one of the things Anthony has said. He has said he refuses money from lobbyists and corporate interests, something that resonates with voters, and something that someone with the ability to self-fund can afford to do. On this note, see the sidebar below as there are differences between the spirit and letter of the law defining a registered lobbyist as well as on the interpretation of what a "corporate interest" is. Does a contribution from the Chairman of Robinson Oil, which operates over 30 Rotten Robbies, count as a corporate interest? What about the Chief Investment Officer of Jay Paul, a developer redeveloping the City View Plaza Downtown? Both have contributed to Anthony, amongst many others, and one could argue very successfully they are both corporate interests.

We all want campaign finance reform, and this is a good example of why. Publicly funded

campaigns can eliminate the advantage that wealth affords.

And this isn’t to denigrate the likely hard work of Anthony to get where he’s at. He chose a career in tech (he’s worked for Google/Youtube) and made money. Gabby chose a career mostly in nonprofit (she worked for SV@Home, an affordable housing advocacy org and now leads the Latina Coalition) doing community work, something far less lucrative.

Reason #2 - Number of donors as a proxy for community support

The other tell from fundraising reports is in the size of one's base. If you've got a lot of donors, that means something.

Gabby has raised money from 672 unique donors. Anthony is at 410. In terms of how many each has in San Jose, Gabby is at 346 San Jose donors while Anthony is at 203.

These numbers serve as proxies for a candidate's roots in a community and trust from a community. How many people do you know who, if you asked, would invest in you? What would it take for you to develop that kind of trust of a community? One answer is that it takes years and years of showing up and being involved and doing a good job helping a neighborhood get things done.

At the end of the day and after scouring donor lists, they reinforce what we could have assumed based on the careers of each candidate. Anthony is from tech and has recently started getting involved in the community. Gabby is from nonprofit and has been working in the community and government for the majority of her career. Their donor numbers and bases reflect that.

Political Action Committees

One more thing before I go. There is a lot of misinformation out there being spread by what are called PACs, political action committees. Candidates have no control over PACs and it’s very difficult to be able to get to the bottom of who is behind them. I’m not trying to address that side of campaigning here.

Importantly though, look at who is behind these mailers. They are legally required to print on the mailer who sent it out. See the example below where the fine print discloses who funded the mailer. Some of the most active outside groups are the California Association of Realtors and the California Apartment Association. Both of these special interest groups spend hundreds of thousands of dollars as outsiders here in San Jose and they are consistent in their use of hype and propaganda to mislead voters. If you receive a mailer from either of these groups, be very very very skeptical of what they are saying.

And finally, yes, Gabby is supported by labor and labor has spent a lot on this race through their PACs. There are many labor unions that also support Anthony. I too was backed by labor and hope, given the huge wealth disparities in Silicon Valley, that the next person representing Downtown San Jose is one that fights for working families.

Disclosure: I’m a Gabby supporter and as someone who’s district overlaps a lot with D3, and because the Water District and the City have many issues in common (homelessness and recycled water plus flood protection projects along Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe) I will be working with whoever wins this seat.

*Disclaimer: I'm not a spreadsheet kinda gal so please check my work. Campaign reports can be accessed here. It's really fun to look through them all to see who writes checks! And with the ongoing demise of local journalism, going to source documents instead of relying on the lack of analysis from local reporters is increasingly important. If you have questions, shoot me a note.