As we reported, last Tuesday’s city council election drew over $1 million in campaign contributions and campaign expenditures. One of the useful metrics to see is how much each candidate spent for each vote they received. This metric helps understand the impact money has in an election.
The most important thing to keep in mind when strategizing for an election is name recognition. There are many aspects to consider when it comes to name recognition but in the case of an election, voters tend to vote for a name they recognize on a ballot over the credentials of the candidate.
In this election, name recognition was a factor in the municipal elections with one candidate running on his namesake and Renard Johnson spending almost twice as much as his major opponent to overcome Brian Kennedy’s name recognition.
Johnson spent $652,912.18, including the PAC money helping him with Kennedy spending $375,939.48.
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Alejandra Chávez, running for the District 1 seat, who spent almost three-to-one more money than her closest opponent, Monica Reyes, must still prepare for a run-off election.
But realtor Jose Rodriguez, who spent nothing on his campaign and reports suggest that he ran because he wanted to raise his realtor’s profile, ended up in a runoff against Deanna Maldonado-Rocha who spent over $22,000. Rodriguez ran on his namesake who is a former state senator and county attorney.
The other candidate who focused on television advertising provides us a better understanding of name recognition in a campaign. Tomy Handy, who ran in the District 1 contest reported spending $12,000, mostly on television advertising. Handy spent $2.04 per vote.
The top three candidates by the amounts spent per vote are Renard Johnson, who spent $10.95 per vote, followed by Brian Kennedy with $8.46 per vote and the third was Alejandra Chávez who spent $7.13 per vote.
To better understand name recognition in an election and why candidates spend money on their elections, it is useful to understand how much each vote costs each candidate.
The following table list cost-per-voter for each candidate:
Author’s note: it is possible that Rodriguez spent some money on his election but if he did not meet the threshold, he did not need to report it. We inadvertently put Serna instead of Rodriguez originally. Rodriguez is the one that may have spent money on his campaign without reaching the reporting threshold.
The runoff election is Tuesday, December 14.