By Neal Wong

Ahead of the June 2 election, about 45 people gathered at the Ortega Branch Library on May 13 to hear a presentation on what organizers called a billionaire takeover of local elections.

The event was co-sponsored by Westside Forward, a progressive group led by former San Francisco D-4 Supervisor Gordon Mar, the Phoenix Project, a nonprofit that tracks political money in San Francisco, and the California chapter of the Working Families Party.

According to the latest data, nearly $2 million has been raised on behalf of the five candidates running for D-4 supervisor. Much of this money can be attributed to PACs, which the presentation detailed.

It opened with a group sing-along of “No Billionaires,” a protest song led by Singing Resistance San Francisco, before shifting to a data presentation by Jeremy Mack, executive director of the Phoenix Project.

Mack traced the network’s origins to around 2020, when a string of progressive electoral wins prompted wealthy moderate and conservative donors to realize that throwing money at ads and mailers was not enough.

“Their big strategy was to say, okay, ‘instead of just doing the PACs, how are the progressive groups winning? What are they doing very effectively?’” Mack said. “A big part of that is creating these grassroots groups, groups that actually have a base, that actually are in the community, working with people in the community, trying to create political power.”

He named GrowSF, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, Together SF and Abundance Network as the organizations that emerged from that strategy, funded by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, former Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz and Y Combinator CEO Gary Tan, among others.

Mack said the groups pushed a doom loop message that proved highly effective until crime rates began falling and residents started questioning what they were being told.

“San Francisco is falling apart – 20202022, too much crime, too much drugs, too much homelessness – and all these things are because progressives are in office, and what you have to do then is vote for our candidates who are going to right the track for the City,” Mack said. “That was their narrative,and that helped them with their electoral wins.”

He said their wins include the Chesa Boudin recall, Brooke Jenkins taking office as district attorney and a moderate majority on the San Francisco Democratic Party. The network’s wins slowed in November 2024, when they lost half the races they entered despite greatly outspending opponents.

“They were not expecting to do so poorly in November 2024,” Mack said.

In the D- 4 supervisor’s race on the June 2 ballot, Mack said incumbent Alan Wong benefitted from third-party PAC contributions and spending totaling over $746,000 at the time of the presentation, with much of it from billionaire Michael Moritz through GrowSF and Trump donor Jan Koum, through Manzanita Action Fund and SF Believes.

Mack also pointed to the more than $4.1 million raised, by the time of the presentation, to support Proposition C, a rival measure he said was designed as a poison pill to kill Proposition D – an effort to add a gross receipts tax on companies whose CEOs earn more than 100 times their median worker’s pay. Moritz alone contributed $500,000 to that effort, alongside $250,000 from PG&E and $250,000 from DoorDash CEO Tony Xu.

After the presentation, attendees heard from Sydney Simpson, a California Working Families Party steering committee member and union nurse at Kaiser, who said she sees the consequences of concentrated wealth every day at work.

“I have co-workers who sleep in their car,” Simpson said. “These are the people who actually hold our society together, and they’re exhausted and being priced out of our City. And then the flip side of that – billionaires are actually scheduled to double their wealth in the next few years. And it’s not an accident.”

Attendees included Natalie Gee and Jeremy Greco, candidates for D-4 supervisor.

The scale of outside spending in the race exceeded what Gee anticipated when she entered.

“We knew bringing an independent Sunset voice to this race was going to mean going against a lot of money, but I stepped up because that’s what the district needed after years of turbulence,” Gee said. “What we couldn’t imagine, however, is the truly offensive sums raised by these groups not limited by longstanding city rules that curb the influence of money in our democracy.”

Greco was also shocked by the amount of money raised for the race.

“I just added up everyone’s campaigns – together with PACs and everything, over $ 2 million for all five of us, and that’s for only six months, and you have to run again,” Greco said. “Are you working for the working families? Are you working for the billionaires? Because if they’re spending that type of money for six months, you’re not answering to the working person.”

Mar, who helped organize the forum, said he wanted attendees to leave wanting to be more active in politics and more knowledgeable about campaign contributions.

“Just be more aware of how wealthy special interests are increasing their efforts to influence San Francisco politics,” Mar said. “San Francisco does not belong to the billionaires. It belongs to the people who live here, who work here, who raise families here – who are really fighting for the future of our City.”

Julie Pitta, president of the Phoenix Project, said, “They have the money, but we have the power. You need to get involved in the process. You need to educate yourself about who is funding these campaigns. You need to start paying attention. Our democracy depends on it.”