Los Angeles City Council member Traci Park has raised more than $1.2 million for her reelection campaign in the city\u2019s June 2 primary, more than double the amount collected by challenger Faizah Malik, according to finance reports filed this week.<\/p>\n
Malik, a civil rights attorney, reported raising roughly $454,000 in her bid for the District 11 seat that skirts along the Westside, including Mar Vista, Pacific Palisades, Venice and Westchester, the reports show.<\/p>\n
At nearly $1.7 million, the money raised in the race is the highest for the eight council seats, out of 15 total, on the ballot in the June 2 primary. Any candidate who wins a majority in the election will win the seat outright, otherwise the top two vote-getters will compete in the Nov. 3 general election.<\/p>\n
Two of the eight races are open seats to replace termed-out incumbents, and in five other races, incumbents Eunisses Hernandez, Park, Hugo Soto-Mart\u00ednez, Tim McOsker and Katy Yaroslavsky posted large fundraising leads against their challengers. One incumbent, Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, is running unopposed.<\/p>\n
In the west San Fernando Valley\u2019s 3rd District, three candidates are seeking to replace termed-out Councilmember Bob Blumenfield. <\/p>\n
Insurance company founder Tim Gaspar was leading the pack in fundraising, reporting nearly $430,000. Barri Worth Girvan, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, has raised about $235,000. Tech entrepreneur Christopher Robert \u201cCR\u201d Celona was far behind with about $12,300.<\/p>\n
In Council District 1, which includes Highland Park and Pico-Union, incumbent Hernandez topped the field with about $319,000 in contributions. Challenger Maria Lou Calanche, a former Los Angeles police commissioner, reported raising about $182,000. <\/p>\n
Among other challengers in the race, Sylvia Robledo, a small-business owner and longtime City Council aide, reported about $75,000 in contributions. Raul Claros, founder of a nonprofit called California Rising, listed $70,500 in contributions and entrepreneur Nelson Grande reported raising about $55,000.<\/p>\n
There are six candidates vying to replace incumbent Curren Price in the 9th District, which includes USC and communities along the Harbor Freeway corridor.<\/p>\n
Jose Ugarte, a former deputy chief of staff for Price, led the field in reported financial contributions, amassing $477,000.<\/p>\n
Estuardo Mazariegos, head of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Los Angeles, reported roughly $200,000 in contributions and Elmer Roldan, director of a nonprofit, has raised about $114,000. <\/p>\n
Entrepreneur Jorge Nu\u00f1o and therapist Martha Sanchez trailed with about $25,000 and $13,000, respectively. Educator Jorge Hernandez Rosas did not report any contributions.<\/p>\n
In the other races:<\/p>\n
Yaroslavsky reported raising about $431,000 for her 5th District seat, which includes Westwood, Palms and Hancock Park. None of her opponents, Henry Mantel and Morgan Oyler, reported raising more than $35,000. McOsker reported raising 242,000 for his 15th District seat in San Pedro. Challenger Jordan Rivers, a community organizer, told The Times he did not raise any funds. Soto-Mart\u00ednez reported raising more than $170,000. The three challengers in the race \u2014 Colter Carlisle, Dylan Kendall and Rich Sarian \u2014 reported a combined $152,000.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the Park-Malik contest in District 11 will be determined in the June 2 primary because there are only two candidates in the race.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Councilmember Park credited her fundraising lead to her efforts to clear homeless encampments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI raised an historic number of donations from local Westside residents because I\u2019ve been on the ground since Day One solving our number one priority: getting people off the streets into housing and treatment and removing dangerous encampments from our neighborhoods,\u201d Park said. \u201cResidents, workers and visitors all see the difference.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kendall Mayhew, communications director for Malik\u2019s campaign, said in a statement that Park and her supporters are spending unprecedented money because \u201cwe are winning and they simply don\u2019t know what else to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat our campaign has demonstrated so far, and what we will demonstrate at the ballot box in just a few weeks, is that corporate money cannot defeat an honest, people-powered campaign,\u201d Mayhew said. <\/p>\n
The fundraising totals reported this week represent money given by individual donors, who are limited to contributions of no more than $1,000 in this election cycle. While the reports offer a glance at fundraising, money is also coming in through independent expenditures, which have no limit on how much can be given.<\/p>\n
For example, in District 1, the L.A. County Federation of Labor has reportedly spent more than $226,000 in support of Hernandez. Calanche is also receiving supporting funds: the Fix Los Angeles PAC Supporting Calanche, Ugarte and Park for City Council 2026 has spent about $46,000 on her campaign to unseat Hernandez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles City Council member Traci Park has raised more than $1.2 million for her reelection campaign in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3705,13540,43603,122182,49511,4579,122183,10233,122184,2624,48,52,51,47,50,49,4263,1833,73547,2211,19297],"class_list":["post-285008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-campaign","tag-candidate","tag-challenger","tag-coastal-council-seat","tag-contribution","tag-district","tag-finance-report","tag-fundraising","tag-historic-number","tag-june","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-money","tag-park","tag-primary","tag-race","tag-seat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}