Thank You

Thank you– all of you– for your help in my race.  From the people who helped me walk districts to the people who hosted signs, the people who donated money and the people who helped me staple my flyers.  Thank you, especially, everyone who personally helped to spread the word of my campaign, and to to every single person who came out to vote.  It was a truly valiant campaign, and I can promise that, right now, more than just the campaign managers of my competitors are studying it (because some already told me they are).

When it was all said and done, we raised $30,168 and spent that money on signs, flyers, business cards, and slate mailers, which includes several thousand of my own money spent.
My two opponents (and their supporting PACs) spent a combined eye-popping $258,196 just in my district race alone.
Even while being outspent by over 8.5 times, and being the only one running without a campaign manager whispering in my ear what people wanted to hear, we still wound up getting over 30% of the vote in a three-person race.  That is serious grassroots activism folks, and it was all thanks to each and every one of you.
In my district, I was also the only person in my race who did not run afoul of any campaign finance laws, and I was the only one running without a treasurer.
I was the only one who refused to run a negative campaign, and there was plenty of material to do so.  I stuck with the issues, and I was the clear winner in all of the forums.

We had some serious issues with voter turnout, with only 26,037 people voting in my race, compared to the last open presidential race where 36,426 came out.  That’s nearly 30% of people who simply didn’t show up to vote.  I suspect it was because they did not want to vote for president, but those people who didn’t turn out are also disproportionately supporters of mine rather than my opponents, could have made a real difference.  Every vote really does count, and I am honored and humbled at each and every one of the 7,976 votes I received.  Thank you all.

We have done more with less than any other candidate who fundraised for Newport Beach City Council in decades.

One of the ways that political people like to measure success is “cost per vote”– or the amount of money that is spent vs how many people turned out.

Including PACs and campaign money, this is how we stack up with the competitors when it comes down to cost per vote:

	MG	LL	JH
VOTES	7976	8590	9471
CASH	$30,168	$175,829	$82,366.61
COST/VOTE	$3.78	$20.46	$8.69

Using this as a metric, if I had another $5,670 in my campaign coffers, I would have surpassed the amount of votes needed to win.

This “technical” knowledge is freely available, and if you are considering running for office, consider running a campaign like mine– just raise a little bit more money.

Here’s how the image of how the city stacked up in my race– I left Lido Isle and Peninsula Point alone because I thought I had them locked down and focused my activity on other areas of the city.  Clearly, I was mistaken.

I am very proud of my campaign on many levels.  We seriously over-performed, especially considering the budget and the fact that we had absolutely no staff.

The “dark money” from PACs is particularly disturbing.  I am putting together a plan for District-based elections right now.  I see no reason why someone from another part of the city needs to be electing YOUR representative.  More to come on that in a later post.

In the end, what this message says to the establishment is abundantly clear: we are over 30% of the ballots.  We are here, we are paying attention, and we’re going to hold the establishment accountable for their votes.  They can quantifiably see that now… and that is a win.

In the spirit of this race, please enjoy one of my favorite songs:

 

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