Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie is walloping the competition in the mayoral money race, with about four times as much cash raised as Mayor Breed, most of it coming from tech founders, venture capitalists, and his mom.
There are two very wealthy men running for mayor of San Francisco this November in Levi Strauss heir and nonprofit founder Daniel Lurie, and former supervisor and venture capitalist Mark Farrell. So we would expect insane and probably unprecedented amounts of money to be pouring into this race.
Farrell’s recent entry means he has not faced any public disclosure deadlines for his campaign contributions, so we don't know how much money his campaign is swimming in. The SF Standard reported last month that Farrell had raised $350,000 since declaring in February, but that figure is “according to his campaign,” and cannot be independently verified.
Hedge fund managers, museum trustees and mom.
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) April 12, 2024
Those are among the people who have given the largest sums of money to back Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit founder who’s vying to become San Francisco’s next mayor in November. https://t.co/5r9ZGBJTWA
Among the candidates who’ve been in the race long enough that they’ve had to publicly disclose their contributions, the Chronicle reports Lurie is blowing the competition out of the water by an exponential margin. Lurie donors have contributed nearly $4 million (technically $3.8 million), while Breed’s have given $923,000, and Supervisor Ahsha Safai’s donors have given $330,000.
These are combined totals of the candidates’ official campaigns and their political action committees (PACs). The official campaigns are bound by $500 individual contribution limits, while the PACs can take unlimited donations of any size.
PACs legally cannot coordinate with the official campaigns in any way. But considering that Ron DeSantis's failed presidential campaign made a mockery of that law without consequences, we'll see how that affects 2024 races nationwide.
Breed has a supporting PAC called Forward Action SF, Supporting London Breed for Mayor 2024. Its heaviest-hitting donors are former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (whom Breed oddly endorsed for president in 2020) with a $200,000 donation, and real estate development firm TMG Partners, who contributed $25,000.
But that’s peanuts compared to Lurie’s PAC, called Believe in SF, Lurie for Mayor 2024. That PAC has pulled in a $1 million donation from his mother Miriam “Mimi” Haas, and another $101,000 from his brother Ari Lurie.
Per the Chronicle. Haas’s $1 million contribution is “the largest donation to a committee backing a San Francisco candidate since at least 1998,” which is as far back as the records go. Very probably it's the largest donation ever to an SF mayoral campaign. And to put a finer point on it, that’s more than all of Breed’s donations combined. (Ahsha Safai’s campaign does not currently have a PAC supporting him.)
The Lurie PAC has also pulled a $251,000 contribution from WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, $250,000 from biotech investor Oleg Nodelman, and another $250,000 from investors Christopher and Bradley James, among many six-figure donations from venture capitalists and investors.
And is it fair to point out that a lot of Lurie’s PAC donors don’t even live in San Francisco? Because a lot of them don’t!
This is not a complete picture of the money state of the SF mayoral race. Other mayoral candidates Farrell and Supervisor Aaron Peskin declared their campaigns rather recently, and are not required to make any financial disclosures until July.
Peskin at least has some seed money to fund a slick campaign video, which was just released on Wednesday, but we don't yet know who will be bankrolling his campaign.
Related: Daniel Lurie Makes Candidacy Official For SF Mayor, Says There's 'Hunger For Change' [SFist]
Image via Szabo and Associates