Liccardo Outraises Opponent 3:1
POLITICO: Evan Low in “Rough Spot”
SAN JOSE, CA — Today, Sam Liccardo announced outraising his opponent for California’s 16th Congressional District nearly 3:1. Liccardo raised over $1.57 million into his campaign account, compared to roughly $560,000 raised by his opponent, Assemblymember Evan Low, into his campaign account. Even when factoring in legal funds raised, Liccardo still outraised Low more than 2:1. This comes on the heels of new polling that shows former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo with a strong +11% lead in the two-candidate race to replace the retiring Congresswoman Anna Eshoo.
Of itemized funds raised into their campaign accounts, roughly 60% of Liccardo’s donations came from inside the 16th Congressional District, compared to roughly 20% of Low’s donations. Low raised significantly more from Los Angeles and Washington, DC than from inside the district he is running to represent. Throughout his campaign, Low has relied on out-of-district donations, raising more money from Los Angeles County than from San Mateo.
“Sam’s strong support from the people of this district is a testament to his record as an effective independent leader, and to our community’s demands for Congress to get moving,” Gil Rubinstein, spokesperson for the campaign said. “The voters of our community, in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties, want Sam’s leadership, and are investing to make that a reality. In contrast, Evan Low does what all establishment, insider-funded candidates do: fundraising in Washington DC, Sacramento, and LA because he cannot generate meaningful support from the people he’s represented for a decade.”
Liccardo has raised $4.3 million total, while Low has raised $2.4 million. Liccardo has nearly $2 million cash on hand, while Low has roughly $846,000.
POLITICO reported that Low’s poor fundraising numbers put him in a “rough spot heading into the summer… It’s unfamiliar territory for Low.”
Liccardo is endorsed by over 100 local elected officials, the most Congressional endorsements in the race, with more than a dozen current members of Congress endorsing his campaign, the Sierra Club, the New Democrat Coalition, NorCal Carpenters Union, Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA), Defend the Vote, California High School Democrats, and more than 100 state and local elected officials and community leaders. In the primary election, he was endorsed by the Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle (general election endorsement decision pending). A full endorsement list can be seen here.
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About Sam Liccardo
Sam Liccardo is running for Congress to focus Washington on the big issues like homelessness, climate change, reproductive rights, and the punishing cost of living. To a Congress that has been called the least productive in decades, Liccardo says “Let’s Get it Done!” on the problems that matter most to the Peninsula, the Coastside, and Silicon Valley.
As Mayor of San José, the Bay Area’s largest city, Liccardo’s innovative efforts to confront homelessness include pioneering the conversion of motels to housing in 2016, four years prior to California adopting it as a statewide model. He piloted the development of quick-build prefabricated housing communities that were constructed at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional apartments, helping thousands come off the streets. Liccardo also launched a successful program that employs unhoused residents cleaning the city in exchange for housing and pay (“San José Bridge”). Though San José long struggled with growing homelessness, it became one of the very few California cities to reduce street homelessness in Liccardo’s final year in office, 2022.
Under Liccardo, San José resolved chronic deficits, reduced city debt, and improved its credit rating, particularly through a 2016 ballot measure that saved taxpayers $3 billion over three decades. He took on the gun lobby and crafted a first-in-the-nation requirement for gun owners to pay annual fees to support violence-prevention programs and to purchase liability insurance. He launched San José Clean Energy for the city’s one million residents which now procures 95% of its electricity from renewable and GHG-free sources. Liccardo also led a series of successful ballot measures to preserve open space and hillsides, rebuild city streets and other infrastructure, and provide hundreds of millions in funding for housing affordable to vital workers such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers. Liccardo led efforts to expand BART and was part of the regional coalition that supported the successful efforts to electrify Caltrain.
Prior to his service in elected office, Liccardo prosecuted felony crimes of sexual assault and child exploitation in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, and also served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of California. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Georgetown University. His published works have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other national publications. He and his wife, Jessica García-Kohl, live in San José.
About California’s 16th Congressional District
California’s 16th is an open Congressional District that covers parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, home to Silicon Valley. The district covers all or part of the cities of Menlo Park, Los Altos, Woodside, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, Atherton, Pescadero, Portola Valley, Campbell, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose, Saratoga and Stanford.