How Much Would You Spend Per Vote to be Mayor?

Everyone knows campaigning is expensive, especially in giant media markets like Los Angeles.  Political consultants will suggest spending as much as necessary to win; not exactly rocket science, but still good advice. So, how much is too much?  That depends, but we do have an example of a giant disparity which, interestingly enough, is similar to the candidates themselves and the wealth disparity in the United States.  

Billionaire developer and L.A. City mayoral candidate Rick Caruso spent* $40,957,547 on his campaign and received 232,490 votes.  That’s about $176 per vote.  

Caruso totes his business smarts, but since he inherited a lot of his money, maybe he should talk with Ken Mejia about how to get a better cost per vote.  Mejia is a CPA, lefty activist, and candidate for L.A. City Controller.  He spent $629,107 and received 240,374 votes which is less than $3 per vote.  Ouch.

Calpeek would love to know about the conversation Caruso had with his many campaign consultants, after the final set of votes were released.  We would spend $176 to be a fly on that wall.  If you have any information, please ContactUs@Calpeek.com.

*all expenditure data is as of the last reporting period ending 6/1/22.

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