SLO County Democratic and Republican parties talk campaign money 

With election season in full swing, candidates, committees, and parties across California and in San Luis Obispo County are focused on boosting their coffers with monetary contributions from their supporters.

Some more than others.

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• Illustration By Alex Zuniga; Images From Depositphotos
• CHALLENGED According to SLO County Democratic Party Chair Tom Fulks, the chapter's increased amount of contributions is a welcome change from its days of being underfunded.

According to the California Secretary of State website, the San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party raised $219,775 from Jan. 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024. The sum is almost 50 times higher than the contributions received by the Republican Party of SLO County, five times more than the amount garnered by the Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee, and more than three times the total raised by the Santa Barbara County Republican Party during the same time period.

"The Democratic Party in this county traditionally has a had a hard time competing with the money that comes in from various sources on the Republican side of the aisle, and much of it, in my experience, is what I call dark money," SLO County Democratic Party Chair Tom Fulks said. "When I took over the party, ... I told everybody before they voted for me, I said my No. 1 goal is to raise money so we can compete on an even footing."

Fulks took over as chapter chair in April 2023 after years as a political commentator and as a campaign professional who, most notably, ran campaigns for both 2nd District Supervisor Bruce Gibson and his predecessor Shirley Bianchi.

Over the past year and a half, he said he's compelled leaders like Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), Sen. Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), and Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) to donate to the chapter.

Fulks also focused on local labor unions like the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 403, whose political action committee provided $2,500. While many of the contributors are based in counties like Monterey and Los Angeles, Fulks said it's the SLO County chapters of those unions that make donations.

Some funding heavy-hitters include the California Professional Firefighters political action committee and Professional Engineers in California Government who also contributed $35,000 each; California Teachers Association for Better Citizenship gave the chapter $40,000.

"For this cycle, it's city council candidates, school board candidates, primarily, and special districts like the Port San Luis Harbor District," Fulks said. "So basically, we're helping them and the Democratic Party build a bench of local candidates for the future, and we're also helping the people who we have now in office. So that's what we do with the contributions."

The Democratic Party chapter had $336,717 on hand, according to the Secretary of State website. Fulks told New Times that as a general rule of thumb, the party's account actually ends up with 10 percent of that amount. It's an incentive to participate in a California Democratic Party program called the Victory Fund. SLO County is one of the nine counties that engages with the fund for the Assembly Democratic Caucus.

"Our first meeting of the cycle is this Monday [Sept. 16] with all nine central committees, and the Democratic Party puts these Assembly candidates up on the screen, and when we interview them, and each individual party decides whether or not they want to spend that money on these candidates," Fulks said. "The districts that this fund targets are the gettable ones ... either take from the Republicans or it's an open seat, or where they're defending a particularly vulnerable Assembly member whose district is close."

One such politician up for Democratic protection is Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria. She represents the 27th District that covers portions of Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties. Fulks said he met her at a fundraiser event in Paso Robles.

"She's on the bubble because she's in Fresno and she's a Democrat," he said. "The Central Valley is way more evenly split between Republicans and Democrats than the coast."

According to Fulks, the Democrats' soaring campaign contributions force Republicans to spend their resources and compete for local seats.

"We can put our money down into those school district races that are under the gun from the MAGAs and the Moms for Liberty people," he said.

Unlike other parties, Fulks added, the Democratic Party is transparent about where its money comes from.

Republican Party of SLO County Chair Randall Jordan disagreed.

"Republican Party of SLO County is very transparent. All of our donations are local. We don't solicit," he said. "We usually don't get any donations out of the county. So, the state party doesn't donate to the individual central committees."

While the California Republican Party doesn't extend support financially, it helps the 58 central committees, including SLO County's, with data, block lists, calling lists, and training sessions. The central committees also help each other wherever they can.

"We just bought a whole lot of Trump signs from Yuba County," Jordan said. "Yuba County put the money out and spent, I think, $10,000 and had, gosh, I think 1,000 or 1,500 signs printed and then offered them at cost to the different counties."

Still, outside groups are wary of chipping in, according to him.

"The unions and the consultants, normally, special interest groups, don't want to donate to the Republican Party because we hold our values every very, very closely," Jordan said. "With the going trend with socialism and communism being introduced into our society, we fight that."

At the county level, he said the chapter raises money through donations and fundraisers like the annual Lincoln Reagan Trump dinner and monthly movie nights at the headquarters in Atascadero and Arroyo Grande. The chapter raked in a modest $4,499 between January and June this year, and had $15,891 in cash on hand. The largest donation came from Kenney Enney 4 PRJUSD Trustee 2023 at $3,440. Enney was elected to the Paso Robles Joint Union School District board in 2023.

"This is a very polarizing election," Jordan said. "We have had sales of Trump paraphernalia. We sell Trump hats and Trump flags. We don't sell them, I correct myself—we ask for donations for them."

The money that the party does collect seldom sees the light of day when it comes to campaign finance help. Jordan said the chapter supports local candidates through emails, radio ads, fundraising setup, and slate card publication. But the candidates don't receive monetary endorsement.

The chapter tries to garner support by working with coalitions, Jordan said. So far, the party has fostered relations with Moms for Liberty, the SLO County Cattleman's Association, and Turning Point USA. The chapter plans to collaborate with these groups more robustly in the future.

"Most of our donations are under $100," Jordan said. "We don't have a big fundraising arm, but we have a very, very active and great group of grassroots conservatives working in this county." Δ

Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at [email protected].