At the suggestion of a reader, I’ve been comparing the campaign expense reports filed by Debi Rose and Ken Mitchell in the City Council campaign, which are now the subject of a lawsuit on Staten Island.
The lawsuit, filed by Randy Mastro, alleges that Rose received an unfair advantage from the Working Families Party because they didn’t charge her a “fair market value” for services on the cap. And, with a $161,000 spending cap in a close race, every dollar counts.
I’m not going to speak to the fair/unfair argument, but if you compare the spending, by category, of each candidate, what you see is a clear difference in campaign strategy, which I think could help explain Rose’s upset victory.
Rose spent more money on door-to-door canvassing and voter outreach (about $64,000 compared to Mitchell’s $8,700).
Mitchell spent more on political contributions, campaign literature, campaign mailing, print ads and polling. Which are the more general, less-personal contacts campaigns have with the public.
And that strategy isn’t held in high regard by at least one expert whose testimony was provided by the plaintiff.
Jake Menges, in his affidavit, said, “Moreover, in my years as a political consultant, I have never heard of any campaign identifying voters by means of a door canvassing operation.”
Menges later said based on the scale, time and budget of a Council campaign, Rose’s door-to-door canvassing operation was too small.
“Identifying such voters is typically done by telephone, given the volume of individuals who must be contacted in a short period of time and—ostensibly—on a budget. If such identification was undertaken by means of a door-to-door canvass, it would require contacting a much higher number than 20,000 individuals given voters’ inherent resistance to face to face conversations.”
Anyway, a reader involved with the race provided this graph, which is easier to look at. My list of head-to-head comparisons, by category, of how Rose and Mitchell spent their money is below the chart.
Mitchell:
Fund-raising-$9,070
Rent-$3,090
Office Expenses-$20,707
Advance Repayment-$2,996
Petition Expenses-$684
Political contributions-$3,305
Professional Services-$0
Campaign Worker Salaries-$10,193
Campaign Consultation-$8,688.75
Campaign Literature-$10,0833
Campaign Mailings-$71,862
Polling-$10,300
Postage-$9,102
Print Ads-$4,095
Radio Ads-$0
Television Ad-$1,500
Voter Registraton-$0
OTHER EXPENSES-$24,101
Robocalls-$1,953.48
Posters-$1,192.13
GOTV Calls-$2,099
Lawn Signs-$11,417.75
Rose:
Fund-raising-$5,285
Rent-$6,750
Office Expenses-$7,317
Advance Repyament-$1,477
Petition Expenses-$4,542
Political contributions-$750
Professional Services-$234,455
Campaign Workers Salaries-$21,715
Campaign Consultation-$8,000
Campaign Literature-$3,100
Campaign Mailings-$0
Polling-$0
Postage-$829
Print Ads-$1,625
Radio Ads-$0
Television Ads-$3,150
Voter Registration-$0
OTHER EXPENSES-$8,617
