Campaign fundraising shows money does not guarantee a win

Now that elections are over, two winning candidates for a Los Angeles City Council seat proved that having the most money in a campaign doesn’t guarantee a victory. 

On Thursday, Crosstown's online site released data on local races. Los Angeles City Council Districts 10 and 14 showed that the candidates who raised less money for their campaigns won the race in each district. The total campaign funds include contributions, donors, and matching funds. 

The two candidates for District 10, which includes Koreatown, Mid-City, Wilshire Center, Arlington Heights, Palms, South Robertson and West Adams, were incumbent Heather Hutt and Grace Yoo. Hutt was appointed in 2022 to replace then-Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas after he was convicted of bribery, corruption and fraud. In this election, Hutt was running for a full four-year term. Yoo is an attorney and Neighborhood Council Member running for the third time for the seat. 

The two candidates running for District 14 were incumbent Kevin de León and attorney Ysabel Jurado. District 14 includes Downtown L.A., Boyle Heights and Northeast Los Angeles. De León lost the support and endorsements of significant contributors after an audio leak in 2021 put him in the middle of a conversation that included racist comments. 

Totals spent on the campaign 

The financial disclosures filed with the City Ethics Commission showed that Hutt raised almost $358,000. She had $227,284 through October 30, the ending period to fundraise. She received an additional $130,652 in matching funds from the City of Los Angeles. This “free money” is given to candidates who secure a set amount of small local donations, stated Crosstown. 

Yoo had nearly $418,000, with $226,473 from local donations through October 30 and $191,402 in matching funds from the City of Los Angeles. 

Heather won the race with 63% of the votes (50,693) and Yoo obtained 35% (29,773). Jurado spent about $7.06 per voter, while Yoo spent about $13.94. 

For the District 14 race, De León had $662,512, with $474,962 raised through October 30 and $187,550 in matching funds from the city. Meanwhile, Jurado raised $572,791, with $355,791 from local donors and $217,000 in matching funds. 

Jurado won the race, spending about $12.51 for each of her 45,703 votes, while De León spent about $19.31 on each of his approximately 34,248 votes.

While these are the most recent estimates, they may change in the next few days since votes are still counted until the election is certified on December 3. The cost per vote may also change. 

Celebrating the election

During her victory speech, Jurado said she was humbled to win the City Council District 14 race. She said the hard work included knocking over 83,000 doors with more than one thousand volunteers from the community.

“It was the community that wrote and sent over 8,000 postcards; it was the community that helped develop each and every one of our policies; it was the community that registered over 300 neglected constituents in Skid Row to vote,” she said in a statement. 

In the past, other elections proved similar results. In 2022, Crosstown reported that the candidate for Los Angeles Mayor, Rick Caruso, spent about $67 million during the general election. This meant about $160 was spent for each of the 420,000 votes he received. Meanwhile, Karen Bass spent about $4.98 million on her campaign. This was about $9.77 on each of the 510,100 votes she received. 

The most impressive race that year was Kenneth Mejia, who won the Los Angeles City Controller position with 61% of the votes against his opponent Paul Koretz, who received only 39%. Mejia spent only about $1.06 per vote.