In San Francisco’s recent primary election, billionaires and big businesses spent millions of dollars to influence the outcome. Despite some high-profile losses at the state level, these wealthy individuals and companies had significant success in local contests.

Local Election Results

Chris Larsen, a crypto billionaire and the number one donor to the June races, spent $700,000 to help defeat Prop. D, the ‘Overpaid CEO’ tax. He also contributed to the passage of Prop. A, the earthquake bond, and Prop. B, which deals with term limits. Other notable donors included Michael Moritz, a tech venture capitalist, and Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder, who together spent over $1 million to defeat the Overpaid CEO tax.

A host of businesses and wealthy individuals, including San Francisco-based companies like Visa and the Gap, as well as DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, also spent six-figure sums on measures that won. The bulk of this spending went towards defeating the Overpaid CEO tax. The lone exception in San Francisco was Saikat Chakrabarti, who spent over $10 million in an unsuccessful bid to replace Nancy Pelosi.

Analysis

According to Catie Stewart, a political consultant, ‘Money goes really far and it buys name ID and it can totally sway public opinion. But it’s not the be all and end all.’ Chakrabarti’s significant spending did not help him, as he came in as a total outsider and failed to resonate with most San Francisco voters.

Stewart noted that having more money isn’t helpful if the campaign message is off, and if a candidate doesn’t have the relationships with and endorsements from local officials. In this election, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s endorsement was a better predictor of success, with every measure or candidate he endorsed winning in the June election.

Original reporting: Mission Local — read the source article.