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With a little over a month until election day, the race for the District 5 seat for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors is still wide open. Campaign financial statements filed this week show where the five candidates are receiving the bedrock of their support, as well as their strategies for raising money and getting their message out to voters.
The candidates are looking to replace outgoing Supervisor Joe Simitian, with the stakes getting higher as the primary election draws closer on March 5. If no single candidate wins a majority of the vote, the top two will have a run-off election in November.
Mountain View City Council member Margaret Abe-Koga is leading the pack in terms of money raised and spent so far, amassing about $272,300 and spending $106,000, according to recent campaign filings.
Sally Lieber, a former state Assembly member currently serving on the California State Board of Equalization, is second in line with the fundraising efforts. Lieber has raised approximately $162,700 and has spent about $37,500.
Peter Fung, a retired neurologist who serves on the El Camino Health District Board of Directors, is third, with approximately $88,400 raised and about $59,000 spent so far. Sandy Sans, a business owner, has largely bypassed campaign fundraising, using a $2,025 loan to cover the $1,849 election filing fee.
Barry Chang, a former Cupertino City Council member and mayor, has not yet disclosed his campaign financial statements.
The two forerunners, Abe-Koga and Lieber, had a long runway for their campaigns to get off the ground; both announced their intentions to enter the Board of Supervisors race last spring. But their fundraising strategies diverged early in the campaign, with financial support coming from different sources.
Lieber committed to a corporate-free campaign, stating that she would not accept contributions from developers or big landlords. She also largely self-financed her campaign with a $135,000 loan.
Abe-Koga took a different approach and started to canvass and walk the precincts early on, picking up support from a large number of individual contributors, as well as several political organizations and unions.
Since then the two candidates have largely stayed the course. But Abe-Koga has pulled ahead with her fundraising efforts, bringing in more than 300 donations over the latter half of 2023. The vast majority of them, approximately 284, coming from individual contributors. Abe-Koga also has self-financed her campaign with a $27,000 loan.
Some of Abe-Koga’s prominent backers include State Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose) who contributed $500, Assembly member Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) who contributed $1,000 and Santa Clara County supervisors Susan Ellenberg and Otto Lee, who contributed $500 and $1,000 respectively. Karen Chapman, district chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo contributed $1,250 to the campaign, while Eshoo herself made a previous contribution of $1,000.
Abe-Koga also picked up support from San Francisco Board of Supervisor Myrna Melgar ($500), San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu ($250), Santa Clara County Office of Education Superintendent Mary Ann Dewan ($175). She also received plenty of support from elected and public officials in Mountain View, including Police Chief Michael Canfield ($100); Mayor Pat Showalter ($100); City Council members Lisa Matichak ($100); and Lucas Ramirez ($50) and former Council member John McAlister ($250).
Political committees and unions contributed to Abe-Koga’s campaign as well, with notable support coming from the Santa Clara County’s Deputy Sheriffs Association ($1000), Peace Officers Research Association of California ($1,000), Santa Clara County Probation Peace Officers ($1,000) and Santa Clara County Firefighters ($1,000). Several trade unions also supported Abe-Koga, as well as local chapters of the Service Employees International Union ($1,500) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ($2,000).
Abe-Koga also received money from real estate and development groups, that included Valuable Capital Investment Liability Co. ($2,000), Valuable Capital Investment Architecture ($2,000) and the Western Manufacture Housing Communities Association ($1,000). She also was backed by Tod Spieker ($1,000), a major apartment property owner in the North County.
Other sources of support for Abe-Koga included the Asian American Foundation ($1,000), Fund Her PAC ($500) and Santa Clara County League of Conservation Voters ($1,000).
Lieber’s campaign has picked up steam from donations in the last seven months too. The bulk of Lieber’s financial support comes from her $135,000 loan, but she also added more than $21,000 to her coffers from approximately 50 individual contributions.
Some of Lieber’s backers include educators, environmentalists, attorneys, engineers and business owners. Lieber also received contributions from trade unions that supported Abe-Koga, and both campaigns picked up donations from the Democratic Activities for Women Now ($1,000). Two other Democratic organizations also supported Lieber, the San Benito County Democratic Central Committee ($250) and California High School Democrats ($250), as well as the South Bay Progressive Alliance Corporate Free PAC ($1,000).
Fung’s campaign fundraising has been largely self-financed with an $80,000 loan and the remaining donations coming from 17 individual contributions.
In addition to leading the pack on fundraising, Abe-Koga has spent more money than the other candidates, approximately $106,000, with the bulk of it (more than $75,000) going towards campaign consultants, literature and materials, as well as polling and survey research.
Similar to Abe-Koga, Fung has spent a substantial portion of his campaign finances on getting his message out to the public. From his total expenditures of about $59,000, approximately $43,000 went towards campaign consultants, literature and materials, as well as polling and survey research.
Lieber has spent less than Abe-Koga and Fung. Out of her total expenditures of about $37,500, approximately $21,000, went towards campaign literature and materials, as well as professional services for consultants.
Abe-Koga, Lieber, Fung and Chang accepted the voluntary expenditure limit for the Board of Supervisors race, which is $250,000.