Rose Fellow Douglas Johnson on city council fundraising

An October 17th article in the Victorville Daily Press quoted Rose Institute Fellow Douglas Johnson discussing the lack of large fundraising in the valley’s city council races this election cycle. Titled “No big money in valley’s city council races so far,” the article notes that as of its publication, the current eight candidates combined had not raised as much money as the top vote-getter did alone in the previous election.

Johnson postulates that “it’s just the nature of the area that there is a lot of grass-roots involvement…and when people are already engaged it doesn’t take anywhere near as much money to reach them.” Another factor, according to Johnson, is that “builders have definitely greatly reduced their spending. For one thing, many of them don’t exist anymore.”

Johnson continues, “in big cities, obviously money is hugely important… As the jurisdiction gets smaller, there’s more chance of you knowing the candidate personally or having had some personal involvement with them, and then money — or in particular the mail that money buys — becomes much less important.”