City Council 2017: Who’s Raising & Spending

NY City Hall _ Council Chambers

Who’s Raising and Spending?
By Jon Reznick | Shaking News

Want to know which City Council campaigns are raising and spending the most? Check out the report assembled by Jon Reznick.

Reznick looked at the  recent July 2017 periodic campaign finance filing for New York City Council candidates for ShakingNews and tallied those records alongside the prior filings for the 2017 election cycle.

In his post, Reznick explains that campaign which have already spent the most will have the least room to spend later, due to the CFB expenditure cap limiting how much campaigns can spend in non-election and election years. The spending cap applies to all campaigns that opt in to the CFB matching funds program.

Reznick writes that nearly every potential candidate in the race for Council Speaker (which will take place between the November 2017 election and the January 2018 organizational meeting) appears on his Top 10 Raisers and Spenders list.

Who are the biggest fundraisers?

Rank | Candidate | Amount

0* David Greenfield $883,676.00
0* Julissa Ferreras-Copeland $387,185.00
1  Mark Gjonaj $528,176.00
2 Rory Lancman $506,434.00
3 James Van Bramer $493,148.00
4 Corey Johnson $469,017.00
5 Elizabeth Crowley $411,600.00
6 Brad Lander $395,986.00
7 Mark Levine $395,937.65
8 Ritchie Torres $262,614.00
9 Ydanis Rodriguez $250,677.51
10 Peter Koo $236,275.00
11 Jumaane Williams $207,546.83

Here are the campaigns who have already spent the most money as of the July 2017 filing. Reznick examined the campaigns that have spent over $100,000 so far.

Who are the big spenders?

Rank | Candidate | Amount

0* David Greenfield $372,928.16
0* Julissa Ferreras-Copeland $328,572.91
1 Brad Lander $285,125.93
2 Corey Johnson $269,938.48
3 Mark Gjonaj $266,797.07
4 Mark Levine $181,964.86
5 James Van Bramer $156,214.57
6 Peter Koo $154,507.89
7 Jumaane Williams $152,318.92
8 Ydanis Rodriguez $147,377.45
9 Andrew King $121,661.16
10 Costa Constantinides $120,255.93
11 Ronnie Cho $113,619.14
* Ferreras-Copeland and Greenfield both announced that they are retiring rather than running for re-election.

A total of 179 city council campaigns have filed expenditures in this cycle. These top 11 spenders have spent $1,969,781.40 in pursuit of the city council, while the wider class of 179 city council candidates has spent a total of $5,898,471.67. That is to say, one-third of city council candidates expenditures are accounted for by these 11 politicians, representing only 6 percent of the campaign committees in the field.

The two candidates who have truly spent the most – by a lot – have now dropped out of the running. The next ten on Reznick’s list are incumbents who expect to retain their seats with little credible challenges.

In a review of the top ten spenders, Reznick looks at the ratio of dollars raised to spent, how much fundraising expenditure they are declaring as a ratio to their haul, and then we look at the count and sum of contributions as a feature. Reznick also notes whether the candidate is a leader of the pack in any of his rankings, and if they’ve declared a consulting expenditure which links them to a well-known consulting firm.

AM Mark Gjonaj (l); Martin Shkreli (r).

AM Mark Gjonaj (l); Martin Shkreli (r).

Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj (CD13) has spent $0.50 for every dollar raised, and spends roughly 8 cents in order to raise $1. He has received 916 contributions and is ranked #7 in this count. Once you remove David Greenfield, Gjonaj is ranked #1 for the sum of his haul, $528,176.00. He boasts $1,000 from someone named Martin Shkreli. A campaign spokesperson denies it was donation from the infamous ‘Pharma Bro’ campaign. She says the donation came from a different Martin Shkreli. Gjonaj is represented by the Advance Group.

Council Member Andy King (CD12) has spent 82 cents for every dollar raised, and spends roughly 40 cents in order to raise $1. He has received 419 contributions and is ranked #45 in this count. He is ranked #16 for the sum of his haul, $148,041.00. King is #2 in the chamber for fundraising costs, at $59,315.95. King is one of two top spenders who is not also a top fundraiser. King is with Red Horse Strategies.

Read the entire article by Jon Reznick here.

NOTE: This post has been updated to note that the Gjonaj campaign denies the Shaking News report about taking a contribution from the infamous ‘Pharma Bro.’

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