Lau Spent Much More Money Than Kim In Mayor’s Race
And yet the former Hawaii聽County mayor easily defeated the former managing director in the primary聽election.
Money may be the mother’s milk of politics, but it’s no guarantee of victory.
Just ask Wally Lau, who lost by a 2-to-1 vote margin to Harry Kim in the primary battle for Hawaii Island mayor.
Lau, a former managing director, spent more than 14 times what Kim, a former mayor, spent on his campaign.
New data from the state shows that Lau spent$200,068聽to Kim’s聽$13,805.
To put it another way, Lau spent about $20 per vote to Kim’s聽67 cents.
It was the greatest spending disparity in all contests last year. In fact, 20聽percent of all winning candidates were outspent by their closest spending opponents.
Other from 2016:
- Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell outspent Charles Djou in the general election by a more than 3-to-1 ratio.聽Caldwell dropped聽$3,410,704聽while Djou blew through聽$963,210
- Caldwell held 45 fundraisers since his last election in 2012, compared to Djou’s 12 fundraisers in a span of five months in 2016.
- The mayor’s聽45 fundraisers “topped the list” of the number of fundraisers held by candidates that ran in 2016.
- In the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney鈥檚 race, incumbent Keith Kaneshiro spent $100,684 on his easy re-election while his opponent Anosh Yaqoob spent nothing.
- Hawaii聽super political action committees聽raised $2,029,255 and spent $1,663,481.
- The pro-Caldwell, anti-Djou Workers for a Better Hawaii raised the most out of all the 17 super PACs ($983,000) with $500,000 coming from the Regional Council of Carpenters, $208,000 from the Hawaii Government Employees Association and $150,000 from the Hawaii State AFL-CIO.
- Save Our City spent $213,636.99 to oppose Caldwell聽but spent nothing to support Djou. Most of the money came from engineer Dennis Mitsunaga and聽individuals employed by Mitsunaga & Associates.
Among other items, the Campaign Spending Commissions allows folks to聽see not only the total amount of monies raised and spent by office and cost per vote, but also聽top 10 lists of receipts, contributions received and loans expenditures.
