Webber campaign pulls in record funds

Entrepreneur Alan Webber has lapped the field of mayoral candidates with a record-breaking haul of campaign cash, almost double what the other three privately financed candidates in the race have raised combined to date, according to the first batch of 2018 campaign finance reports posted online by the city clerk Thursday night.

Webber, a one-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate perhaps best known as the co-founder of Fast Company magazine, has raised a little more than $209,000 in the almost four months since he announced his bid for the mayor’s office in late September.

Next in the five-person field is Kate Noble, a member of the school board, who has raised almost $63,000.

With $81,600 in expenditures filed through Wednesday, Webber’s campaign, so far, has spent more than any other candidate has raised.

City Councilor Joseph Maestas’ campaign has raised $27,800, and Councilor Peter Ives’ campaign has brought in $16,900 in contributions.

Councilor Ron Trujillo was the only mayoral candidate to qualify for the city’s public campaign finance system, which disburses $60,000 to mayoral hopefuls.

In a statement Thursday night, Webber touted his “diverse base” of supporters.

“The breadth of support for my campaign is remarkable and gratifying,” he said. “It demonstrates what ‘a big tent’ campaign looks like.”

For comparison’s sake, Mayor David Coss, in his 2006 run for what was then a part-time, largely ceremonial mayor’s office, raised $146,000 in private contributions, according to his campaign’s final report.

For his re-election bid in 2010, Coss raised $175,700 — then the largest sum

in the history of city elections, according to a New Mexican report at the time.

The mayor’s role will become full time after the March 6 election, with a salary hike from $29,500 to $110,000 per year, as well as enhanced authority over top-level administrative personnel.

More than 315 of Webber’s 513 separate campaign contributions in this initial period came from Santa Fe, with 68 others from elsewhere in the Land of Enchantment, as near as Tesuque and as far afield as Las Cruces. More than 120 came from outside New Mexico, 13 of them the maximum allowed under city election code for an individual donation, $2,500.

Webber received 17 maximum donations from Santa Fe supporters, including one $2,500 contribution from himself.

His contributions came from 24 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada.

In a recent interview, Webber said he expected to face questions about campaign contributions. “We’re going to hear, ‘Wow, this man is trying to buy the mayor’s office.’ I don’t look at it that way,” Webber said.

“I don’t think it’s pernicious,” he added, referring to asking friends from other places for donations to his campaign. “I don’t think it’s an attempt to wield out-of-state influence. Every election is, in part, a contest of ideas, but it’s also a contest of character. If folks are willing to vouch for my character by giving me their support, I think that’s a positive thing.”

No political action committees filed a report with City Clerk Yolanda Vigil’s office by Thursday, Vigil said. Any entity with expenditures exceeding $250 is required to file a report, under the city’s election code.

But the city’s public campaign finance system is a “leaky vessel,” Webber said, describing the potential for political action committees to flood the race. “I wish we had a public finance methodology that was much more … a level playing field,” he said.

Noble has spent the secondhighest amount, with almost $37,000 in expenditures listed in her campaign report. Noble also posted the highest total of in-kind, noncash contributions, with $7,330 in donated goods, materials and services — primarily events, according to her report.

Webber’s campaign reported $3,300 in in-kind contributions.

Ives spent the least of the candidates, roughly $5,110.

Maestas has the least cash on hand, having spent almost $22,000 of the $27,000 his campaign raised.

Seven of the eight City Council candidates spread across three contested races qualified for public campaign finance, a $15,000 allotment.

The lone privately funded council candidate in a contested race, the District 1 incumbent Signe Lindell, so far has raised more than double that, a smidgen under $33,000.