Billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso has now poured more than $80m of his own fortune into the race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, according to campaign records.
Caruso’s spending is unprecedented in the race to lead America’s second most populous city, political experts have said, but the luxury mall developer has not yet broken the record of New York City billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who spent $102m to win his third term as mayor in 2009.
Caruso, who was once registered as a Republican, upended the mayoral primary this spring with tough-on-crime rhetoric, pledges to get unhoused people off the streets, and a wave of advertisements funded with more than $40m of his estimated net worth of $5.3bn.
After coming in second to Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass in the nonpartisan primary, Caruso has doubled that investment, crossing the $80m threshold of contributions to his own campaign three weeks before election day, according to campaign records from the city’s ethics commission.
The fundraising and spending disparity between Caruso and Bass is stark, even as Hollywood power brokers have backed the progressive lawmaker’s campaign.
As of late September, Caruso had raised more than $60m, including his own contributions, while Bass had raised only $6m.
Caruso’s campaign continues to face attacks over what critics and his opponents decry as his attempt to “buy the election”, and by the stark contrast between the tens of millions being spent on the mayoral race and the humanitarian crisis of homelessness in the city.
The candidate’s big dollar spending also comes as the city’s political landscape has been rocked by a racism scandal that ousted the Latina president of the city council and has left two other council members facing furious calls to resign.
It’s not yet clear how residents’ anger over leaked audio of three Latino city council members disparaging Black and indigenous residents and talking in blunt terms about manipulating district lines to maintain their political power might affect overall voter turnout in the election, or Bass or Caruso’s chances of victory.
Recent polls show Bass still leading in the race, though Caruso is narrowing the gap. The survey, released by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies in early October, shows Bass leading by three percentage points among all registered voters and 15 percentage points of likely voters.
Asked about the criticisms of Caruso’s spending on the race, campaign spokesperson Peter Ragone said “Rick is not a career politician who has benefited from years of media attention.”
“We view the campaign as very close and we are doing everything imaginable to talk to voters about the issues of homelessness and corruption that are plaguing Los Angeles,” Ragone said.
Bass’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Billionaires have spent big on elections in California before: eBay CEO Meg Whitman spent $144m of her own money on a losing campaign to become the state’s Republican governor in 2010.
But other recent mayoral campaigns, even in America’s biggest cities, have been contested with smaller sums: current New York City mayor Eric Adams won with less than $19m in total contributions in 2021, while Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot won in 2019 with less than $9m, according to data from OpenSecrets, a non-profit that tracks election contributions and spending.
John Catsamatidis, a New York supermarket magnate with an estimated net worth of $4bn, raised a total of $21m for his failed New York City mayoral bid in 2013, including his own contributions and others’, according to OpenSecrets.
