The Airbnb-sponsored Committee to Expand the Middle Class is one of the biggest spenders in local elections this year, contributing about 30 times more than it has in all previous Los Angeles elections combined since 2018. The short-term rental giant has upped its political spending across the country since last year, pouring $7.1 million so far into this year’s L.A. mayor’s race and three other local contests as of mid-October.
Airbnb’s contributions to local independent expenditure committees support Mayor Karen Bass’ reelection campaign and those of three other local candidates: John McKinney for city attorney and City Council candidates Tim Gaspar in District 3 in the west San Fernando Valley and Jose Ugarte in District 9 in South Los Angeles. The company also backed incumbent Traci Park in City Council District 11 on L.A.’s Westside, who won outright in the June primary.
The outpouring of cash comes as the company has lobbied the city to permit additional short-term rentals for a limited time ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games.
Bass favors the expansion. Her challenger, L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, didn’t respond to Capital & Main emails inquiring about her stance on the issue. But in an October candidate forum, she criticized Bass’ support for loosening short-term rental restrictions. Raman has led City Council efforts to strengthen enforcement of L.A.’s current law.
Airbnb spokesperson Justin Wesson said in a statement that the unprecedented spending in L.A. politics this year is part of Airbnb’s nationwide effort to “back causes and candidates that champion building local economies, including a tourism economy that doesn’t just benefit big, corporate hotels, but also everyday homeowners looking to make extra money by sharing their home.”
As of mid-October, Airbnb’s election spending rivals that of hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick, an advocate of adding bike lanes to L.A. streets, who had donated about $7 million to committees backing Raman as of early October. Airbnb has so far overtaken the Los Angeles Police Protective League — traditionally one of the largest contributors to local elections — in political giving. The Police Protective League had spent more than $4 million on committees supporting Bass, McKinney, Gaspar, Ugarte and others as of early October.
“They [Airbnb] are trying to buy the election,” said Estuardo Mazariegos, a City Council candidate for South Los Angeles who opposes an increase in short-term rentals in the city. Airbnb donated $750,000 to a political action committee sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, which supports Ugarte, Mazariegos’ opponent.
Independent expenditure committees, unlike individual donors, can spend unlimited amounts in elections — as long as they don’t coordinate their activities with candidates’ campaigns.
The Airbnb committee gave more than $6.1 million to political action committees sponsored by the Central City Association, a downtown L.A.-based nonprofit that promotes business interests. A $750,000 contribution went to a Central City Association committee that backs Bass, while $3.3 million was earmarked for CCA-sponsored committees that support city attorney candidate McKinney.
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Airbnb’s political largesse has so far yielded a win for the company in California’s Orange County in June and mixed results in Dallas and New York City last year. But Airbnb may be seeking a more dominant role in Los Angeles politics, given the magnitude of its campaign contributions.
In Dallas, the company poured $500,000 into its Revitalize Dallas PAC to back three City Council candidates last year. Only one candidate won. After New York City passed a 2023 law strictly limiting short-term rentals, Airbnb’s Affordable New York PAC spent nearly $4 million backing 17 winning candidates in local races and opposing Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral bid.
The company’s spending on statewide California issues and candidates is also way up, from $2.2 million in 2024 to almost $7.7 million as of Oct. 22. Airbnb’s Citizens for an Affordable California independent expenditure committee spent more than $1.3 million in a successful effort to force Orange County Democratic state Assembly candidate Mark Pulido into a runoff next month against Republican candidate Paolo Morales.
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In L.A., Airbnb’s political spending appears to be part of a broader push to shape local policy. Over 18 months, the company has spent almost $4.2 million lobbying, primarily for a proposed vacation rental ordinance. The Vacation Rental Ordinance could temporarily expand L.A.’s short-term rental market by as many as 15,000 units ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games. The law would sunset in December 2028, five months after the games’ scheduled closing ceremony.
The city’s current home sharing law permits Angelenos to offer only their primary residences for rent to nightly or weekly visitors. The proposed Vacation Rental Ordinance would temporarily override that provision and permit residents to rent second homes to tourists. In a January letter to the L.A. City Council, Wesson argued that passing such an ordinance could bring the city a windfall of up to $110 million in additional transient occupancy or bed taxes on nightly tourist stays.
As part of its lobbying effort, Airbnb brought together labor unions, local chambers of commerce and community groups in support of the proposed Vacation Rental Ordinance. Airbnb called the coalition “Save Our Services” and spent almost $3.7 million of its lobbying dollars for its “media” and “canvassing” expenses, according to L.A. City Ethics Commission disclosures.
More than a dozen members of the Airbnb coalition — from the organizers of a Koreatown cultural festival to the Crenshaw Chamber of Commerce — echoed Wesson’s argument at a May 12 meeting of the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee.
Kevin Norton of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18 asked, “Does it make sense for our city to keep saying we have no money for critical needs while blocking a proven source of income?” Norton added that the city could collect “up to $110 million dollars [in tax revenue] that are projected” and urged lawmakers to “be fiscally smart” and “amend the short term rental ordinance.”
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But the proposed Vacation Rental Ordinance — which has been under discussion at the City Council since 2018 — wouldn’t generate additional revenue, said Vincent Bertoni, L.A. director of city planning, in a 2021 memo to the City Council. The proposed law would do nothing to attract more visitors to the city, Bertoni said; instead, it would simply give travelers more places to stay. In April, Bertoni said in another memo that the supply of second homes isn’t large enough to significantly increase tax revenues.
In his letter to the City Council, Wesson argued that additional vacation rentals would help the city accommodate Olympics spectators at a time when hotels would be stretched to capacity.
That’s one reason Bass said she supports the measure. Neither Bass nor her challenger, Raman, responded to Capital & Main’s interview requests or questions about their positions on the proposed Vacation Rental Ordinance.
But in May, Bass told NBC4 that the policy would “accommodate the influx of tourists during the Olympics.” Bass emphasized the short-term rental expansion would be temporary. “Otherwise I would be concerned about the housing supply,” she said.
For her part, at an Oct. 3 Caló News-sponsored candidate forum in South L.A., Raman said she will “make sure this mayor’s push for deregulating short-term rentals during this time in ways that are harmful to renters don’t go through.”
At the May Planning and Land Use Committee meeting, three hotel managers said there was no need to expand short-term rentals because their hotels had ample rooms to accommodate visitors to the Olympic Games. A September report commissioned by the Hotel Association of Los Angeles said “6 in 10 hoteliers expect short-term rental … growth to hurt bookings & rates.”
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In 2018, L.A. adopted its Home Sharing Ordinance, which allows Angelenos to offer only their primary residences for nightly or weekly rentals. That same year, then-City Councilmember Herb Wesson — Justin Wesson’s father — and current City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson first proposed adding second homes to the short-term rental market.
City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who chairs the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, told Capital & Main he opposed the idea of allowing second homes to be used as short-term rentals eight years ago and still does today. He said the proposal could incentivize some landlords to turn housing into tourist accommodations. “The actual cost to the city when you lose affordable housing can be much greater than any benefit we might see in taxes for opening up vacation rentals,” Blumenfield said.
The current vacation rental proposal has safeguards to prevent people from purchasing second homes to use as short-term rentals. But Blumenfield said the law would be difficult to enforce. The city lacks sufficient staff to enforce its current home sharing law, according to a 2024 L.A. Housing Department report, which estimated that 7,500 short-term rentals in multifamily buildings operated illegally. That same year, a Capital & Main and ProPublica investigation found dozens of rent-controlled apartments — which cannot legally be offered for nightly or weekly rentals — were nonetheless available on vacation rental booking sites such as booking.com. Several were also listed on Airbnb, despite an agreement the company has with the city to share listings data and remove illegal listings from its platform.
At the time, an Airbnb spokesperson said, “there is no place on Airbnb for Hosts who circumvent the City’s Home-Sharing Ordinance and we will continue to work closely with city staff to address Hosts who try to evade the rules.”
Blumenfield said he won’t hold a hearing on the vacation rental proposal until city departments report to the City Council with plans for strengthening enforcement of the current home sharing law. The City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee requested those reports nearly two years ago, but city departments have yet to provide them in full.
Blumenfield’s chairmanship of the committee will end in December, when he reaches the council’s three-term limit.
The fate of the vacation rental proposal may depend on which candidates for mayor and City Council are elected on Nov 3.
Airbnb-backed City Council candidates Ugarte and Gaspar didn’t respond to Capital & Main’s questions about their positions on the proposed Vacation Rental Ordinance. McKinney, the candidate Airbnb supports for city attorney, also didn’t respond to questions about how he would approach home sharing enforcement.
Westside resident Ellen Evans, who supports stronger short-term rental enforcement, chairs the Bel Air-Beverly Crest Neighborhood Council, one of three local elected neighborhood councils that have registered their opposition to the proposed Vacation Rental Ordinance at the City Council. Evans said she was speaking to Capital & Main as a private citizen, not as a representative of her neighborhood council.
“It’s really hard for the council members to justify this [the Vacation Rental Ordinance] in a city with a huge housing crisis,” Evans said. “I feel reasonably confident they’ll make the right choice.”
Ben Poston contributed to this report.
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