Section 1 – Percentage of Candidates’ Contributions Received from within San Francisco
Analysis of Mid-Year San Francisco Campaign Financing of Candidates for November 2011 Election – Part 2
By Oliver Luby & Marc Salomon
Section 1 – Percentage of Candidates’ Contributions Received from within San Francisco
District Attorney – Mayor – Sheriff.
One chart for each of the three election contests is provided below. Of all the San Francisco candidates, Mayor candidate John Avalos demonstrated a contributor base that was proportionally the most grounded in San Francisco, with 90% of his itemized contributors being located in San Francisco. Mayor candidate Tony Hall took second place, with 82%. In last place is Sheriff candidate Paul Miyamoto, with only 39% of his itemized contributors being located in San Francisco. Miyamoto, Mayor candidates Chiu, Yee, and Rees, and all the District Attorney candidates scored under 50%.
These data may be indicative of the public financing law encouraging candidates (in this case, the Mayor candidates) to seek contributions from San Franciscans, rather than from sources located outside the city. The case in point for this effect of public financing, besides the number of Mayor candidates with scores over 50%, is this year’s DA’s race, for which no public financing program exists and all the candidates have high levels of support from contributors outside San Francisco.
In the Sheriff’s race, Mirkarimi is clearly the candidate with the most solid base of San Francisco support. On the other hand, many of Miyamoto’s contributors are employees of the City & County government of San Francisco (example: sheriffs[1]), though it should be noted they often reside outside the city, and therefore take their property taxes and electoral votes elsewhere[2]. As for the Mayor candidates who are obtaining public financing from the city but yet receive the majority of their contributions from interests outside San Francisco, common sense suggests this admonition: San Franciscans beware.
I. District Attorney candidates – % of donors located in SF
II. Mayor candidates – % of donors located in SF
III. Sheriff candidates – % of donors located in SF
[1] For more information, see Section 3 of this article (hyperlink).
[2] In fairness to Miyamoto and as word of caution in general about the Section 1 data, individual contributors who do not actually reside in San Francisco may still report a San Francisco contributor address if it is their private place of business. While many individual contributors report their residential address, reporting of one’s business address is also common for those who are not employed by government. Thus, some contributors reporting San Francisco addresses may only work in San Francisco and actually reside elsewhere. Likewise, some contributors reporting addresses outside San Francisco may work outside San Francisco while residing in San Francisco.
