Money doesn’t guarantee victory in Fresno elections. How much did your vote cost?
Candidates for various Fresno city and county elected offices, and backers or opponents of local ballot measures, collectively spent more than $4.1 million on campaigns for the March 5, 2024, primary election.
But in an election where only about 30% of Fresno County’s registered voters bothered to cast ballots, the stark differences between big spenders and those who ran campaigns on shoestring budgets provide an interesting look at how successful the spending was on a per-vote basis.
That is, how much did your vote cost them?
The Fresno Bee examined campaign finance disclosures in the local races and aligned those with election vote totals through March 15 to provide a cost-per-vote analysis of campaign spending. Some committees spent the equivalent of $30 or more for each vote they received, while spending by some cash-strapped campaigns amounted to pennies, nickels and dimes per vote.
Along with polling, money raised and spent on political campaigns can sometimes – but not always – forecast election results: The more money a candidate or campaign has to spend, the more they can get their message out to voters: more direct-mail ads, more yard signs, more billboards, more ads on TV, radio or newspapers.
Spending big, however, is no guarantee of election success. That’s something that the backers of Measure E, a proposal to enact a 0.25% sales tax in Fresno County to support improvements to facilities and programs at California State University, Fresno, learned the hard way.
The Yes on Measure E committee spent more than $2.1 million in an unsuccessful effort to persuade voters to approve the tax. In a primary election with voter turnout less than 30%, however, that cost amounted to approximately $34.38 for each of the 62,652 voters who said yes.
Those yes votes were outnumbered by more than 84,000 “no” votes in a race with no organized committee to oppose Measure E. A previous incarnation of Measure E, for a 0.2% sales tax, was defeated in 2022 following a campaign that spent almost $1.9 million.
Among local elected offices on the primary ballot, three contests for the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and one open seat on the Fresno City Council attracted the most spending by candidates.
The reported campaign expenditures don’t include spending after Feb. 17, in the two weeks before Election Day; campaigns aren’t required to disclose that information until July 31 covering the period ending June 30.
Fresno County Board of Supervisors District 2: Candidates for the District 2 seat representing much of north Fresno collectively spent more than $670,000 on their campaigns. In raw dollars, incumbent Supervisor Steve Brandau reported the most expenditures, according to campaign finance disclosures filed through Feb. 17, the latest reports available. Brandau’s campaign reported spending almost $316,000, ahead of the $300,000 spent by challenger Garry Bredefeld, a Fresno City Council member seeking to unseat him.
Bredefeld and Brandau finished 1-2 in the five-person race to earn a place in a November runoff election. Bredefeld received 16,821 votes, which amounts to spending about $17.83 per vote. Brandau pulled in 12,465 votes, which calculates to about $25.34 per vote.
While Bredefeld reports having $346,000 remaining in his campaign treasury as of Feb. 17 as a springboard for the general election runoff, Brandau told The Bee on Election Night that he had pretty much drained his campaign coffers and expected to begin fund-raising in earnest for the fall. Brandau’s campaign disclosure showed that his committee had less than $47,000 in cash as of Feb. 17.
Per-vote spending for the rest of the District 2 field was:
County Assessor-Recorder Paul Dictos, 7,110 votes received, $50,499 spent, $7.10 per vote.
Businessman Bryce Herrera, 4,535 votes received, $4,390 spent, 97 cents per vote.
Social worker Dion Bourdase, 3,377 votes received, $2,799 spent, 83 cents per vote.
Fresno County Board of Supervisors District 3: Incumbent Supervisor Sal Quintero’s campaign spent more than $163,000 in his re-election bid to represent south Fresno on the county board, while challenger Luis Chavez, a member of the Fresno City Council, spent almost $135,000 on his campaign. From the four-candidate field, Quintero and Chavez were the top two vote-getters and will face off in a November runoff.
Quintero received 5,517 votes, which translates to $29.59 per vote, while Chavez spent $34.86 for each of the 3,866 votes he received – the highest cost-per-vote figure among local contests from the March 5 primary.
Among the remaining District 3 board candidates, per-vote spending was:
Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias, 2,946 votes received, $49,764 spent, $16.89 per vote.
Teacher E.J. Hinojosa, 2,500 votes received, $11,525 spent, $4.61 per vote.
Fresno County Board of Supervisors District 5: Nathan Magsig, the incumbent supervisor representing eastern Fresno County, handily won re-election against a relatively unknown opponent, nonprofit manager Jennifer Cruz. Magsig’s campaign disclosures report almost $164,000 in spending, while Cruz spent $11,525 on her campaign through Feb. 17.
Magsig received 28,052 votes, which amounts to spending $5.84 per vote. Cruz received 11,425 votes, which means she spent 96 cents per vote.
No on Measure A and B: The most economical campaign in the March primary was also one of the most successful in a cost-per-vote vote analysis. The No on Measure A & B Committee, formed to oppose two proposals put on the ballot by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, spent a mere $7,354 on the primary election.
No organized committee was formed to support the two measures.
The No on A & B campaign successfully defeated Measure B, which would have reserved for the local board the authority to rename communities and places in unincorporated parts of the county. Measure B fell with only 36% of voters, or 51,355, saying yes, against 91,465 who voted no, or 64%.
But the committee’s second target, Measure A to keep elections for county sheriff and district attorney in non-presidential election years, was approved by voters with 55% or 77,311 yes votes to 45% or 63,327 no votes.
The campaign’s spending amounted to less than 12 cents per vote in the unsuccessful effort to defeat Measure A, but only eight cents per vote to kill Measure B.
City of Fresno mayor, City Council races
Incumbent Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer spent big in his re-election effort, reporting expenditures of more than $406,000 by his campaign through Feb. 17 en route to an easy win over two relatively unknown challengers. With 54,062 votes, Dyer’s win cost about $7.52 per vote.
James Barr, a high school teacher, received 9,499 votes after a reported $2,000 in campaign spending, or about 21 cents per vote. A second challenger, stay-at-home mother Samantha Dussell, spent $3,466 on her campaign and received 3,849 votes, which translates to 90 cents per vote.
Fresno City Council District 6: With incumbent Garry Bredefeld facing term limits, a field of five candidates vied to replace him to represent northeast Fresno on the City Council. Collectively, the candidates spent just over a quarter of a million dollars wooing voters.
That spending yielded a mixed bag of results. Attorney Roger Bonakdar outspent the rest of the field on his own, with his committee reporting more than $128,000 in spending. And while the 6,419 votes he received were tops among the candidates, it was not enough to avoid a November runoff with the second-place finisher, fundraising consultant Nick Richardson. Richardson’s campaign spent the least of the four candidates in the primary.
The per-vote calculations for the contest are:
Bonakdar, 6,419 votes received, $128,443 spent, $20 per vote.
Richardson, 4,586 votes received, $23,339 spent, $5.09 per vote.
Businesswoman Molly Fagundes-Johnston, 3,918 votes received, $33,347 spent, $8.51 per vote.
Bank executive Raj Sodhi-Layne, 2,291 votes received, $67,983 spent, $29.67 per vote.
Fresno City Council District 2: Neither of the two candidates in the contest to represent northwest Fresno on the city council spent more than $50,000 on the primary campaign. Incumbent Mike Karbassi won the election with 10,572 votes after spending a reported $48,814, or $4.62 per vote.
Karbassi’s challenger, nonprofit executive Matthew Gillian, reported $38,873 spent by his campaign committee and received 4,030 votes, which translates to $9.65 per vote.
