Wealthy donors flooding Oakland’s election with out-of-town cash

OAKLAND — The same Piedmont hedge-fund manager who helped finance recall efforts against two prominent East Bay leaders is leading a fresh late-game charge along with two outside groups seeking to swing Oakland’s politics in a more moderate direction on Nov. 5, recent campaign finance records show.

Philip Dreyfuss, a partner of the San Francisco firm Farallon Capital Management, had never spent money on Alameda County politics before this year. But following October, his total spending in the region ahead of this week’s election has topped $1.9 million, according to the campaign filings.

Combined with large influxes of cash by two other political action committees — one based in San Francisco, the other in Marin County — the spending represents a new group of power players in the East Bay. It appears to be countering the deep pockets of progressive labor unions, while largely supporting candidates that, while holding varying policy views, share a distinct tougher-on-crime approach to governing.

The latest beneficiaries of this late-game spending splurge include Oakland City Council at-large candidate LeRonne Armstrong, District 3-West Oakland candidate Warren Logan, District 7-East Oakland candidate Ken Houston, District 1-North Oakland candidate Len Rafael and city attorney candidate Brenda Harbin-Forte, who led the charge to recall Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao.

“Large-ticket donors who might normally channel their dollars at the top of the ticket, that influence has been spilling over and down into marquee local races,” said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.

Prior to this month, Dreyfuss appeared to focus much of his attention on the recalls of Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. Records show he registered to vote in Oakland with no party preference before the 2016 election, but he didn’t begin donating to political causes until last year.

Last winter, he shelled out $590,000 to the group Supporters of Recall Pamela Price, which became the financial powerhouse behind the official campaign to boot the county’s top prosecutor from office barely two years into her first term. Much of that — about $310,000 — came in the form of loans.

He also poured at least $889,000 — including $264,000 this month — into the group Foundational Oakland Unites, becoming its sole financial backer through at least Oct. 19. While much of that money was spent on recalling Thao, $125,000 was put toward eventually repealing the city’s ranked-choice voting system in a future election. This month, it pumped at least $135,000 into electing Houston and Rafael.

The group recently sent out a mailer that included endorsements of both recalls, while voicing opposition to all three Oakland tax measures and a state ballot measure that would ensure a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. It also opposed most other state ballot measures, except Propositions 34 and 36.

Lately, Dreyfuss also appears to have turned his attention to the Marin County-based group Revitalize East Bay Committee, donating $340,000 to the little-known political outfit that has spent at least $693,000 over the last seven weeks, campaign finance filings show.

Little is known about the entity, with its only listed purpose being “to make contributions to local ballot measure committees.” It appears to have been formed by Isaac Abid, founder of the real estate firm Lakeside Group, as well as two San Rafael-based attorneys, Steven S. Lucas and Kira Simon.

Along with Dreyfuss, the group’s supporters include Holland Residential California, a real estate firm based in Vancouver, Washington, that chipped in $120,000. It also received $100,000 from Ryan Graciano, a founder of Credit Karma.

Pacific Gas & Electric and Ilya Sukhar, an investor with Matrix, gave $50,000. And one of the group’s smallest contributions — a $200 check — came from former Oakland mayoral candidate Loren Taylor.

The group funneled $255,500 to the Supporters of Recall Pamela Price committee, as well as at least $210,000 to a group supporting Logan in the city’s District 3 council race. It also gave $177,840 to a group supporting at-large candidate Armstrong.

Revitalize East Bay Committee also gave $100,000 to another late-game player in Oakland’s political scene, the San Francisco-based political action committee Families for a Vibrant Oakland, which has spent at least $320,000 supporting several Oakland candidates, including city attorney candidate Harbin-Forte, along with Logan and county supervisor candidate John Bauters.

Families for a Vibrant Oakland is sponsored by Abundance Network, an entity that recently sprouted a branch in Oakland led by Coinbase executive Jesse Pollak.

Dreyfuss also gave $130,000 directly to Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao, the official campaign seeking to remove the mayor from office.

Dreyfuss has not given interviews about his political spending or his emergence as a central character in the upcoming election. He did not respond to requests for comment.

His neighbor, the politically active Piedmont landlord Chris Moore, described Dreyfuss as a “private guy” who became interested in East Bay politics after Thao won the 2022 mayoral election and didn’t need much convincing to begin spending big.

“It’s no surprise that a guy with a family who spends time in Oakland wants to help solve the obvious public safety issues,” said Moore, who helped lead the recall effort against Price and was recently hired at Foundational Oakland Unites. He unsuccessfully ran this year to be an Alameda County supervisor.

Thao, on the other hand, has sought to depict Dreyfuss as a kind of boogeyman in Oakland politics, accusing him in an open letter published this week of attempting to “hijack our democracy.”

“You are a hedge fund manager and coal investor who doesn’t live in Oakland who is trying to buy our city government,” Thao wrote. “But the people didn’t elect you, they elected me to protect them from people like you.”