This election year, big money is already flowing.

Money in politics does buy visibility. It does not, however, buy votes.

That was clear in the Democratic primary in Michigan for United States senator, where Abdul El-Sayed beat Haley Stevens on Aug. 4, despite a 9-to-1 spending deficit, according to news reports. A significant chunk of Stevens’ campaign funds came from pro-Israel interests, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It became a campaign topic for El-Sayed, who invoked that spending as evidence his opponent was beholden to a particular point of view.

Of course, candidates can receive money and pressure from various industry groups and lobbyists and it does not mean they are necessarily captured by those perspectives, but it sends a signal as to whom those groups believe will align with their views. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, also receives significant AIPAC funding. AIPAC is his biggest donor, contributing close to $300,000 this election cycle.

"Donors who give to my campaign buy into the values of California’s 19^th Congressional District, I don’t buy into theirs," Panetta says in an email. "That was made clear based on the resounding results of the primary election in June, despite an opponent who tried to make this an issue."

Dollar figures in local campaigns tend to be smaller, but who is giving how much still tells a story, particularly about a deepening political rift in Salinas.

Large cash contributions from Big Ag and from the real estate industry already played a major role in the 2024 campaign cycle, supporting a number of winning candidates who swiftly overturned a series of renter protection measures. Constituents and organizers who supported the suite of ordinances, including rent stabilization, quickly learned that elections do have consequences as they watched their signature achievements crumble. (A referendum on those policies will be on the ballot this November.)

For Salinas City Council District 5, Hartnell College Trustee Irma Lopez is running against incumbent Andrew Sandoval, one of just two champions of rent control remaining on council. As of June 30, Lopez reports her campaign has raised nearly $19,000, including from former councilmember Steve McShane and former mayor Kimbley Craig, as well as a couple of ag companies. She’s also received the maximum amount allowable, $5,900, from the Monterey County Business PAC. Sandoval, the incumbent, reports raising $12,000 so far.

The pattern of 2024 appears to be repeating: Business interests threw their financial weight behind a slate of candidates, all of whom went on to win. The Monterey County Business PAC reports raising a whopping $77,000 halfway through the year, with recent contributions from ag ($15,000 from D’Arrigo Bros., $3,000 from the Grower-Shipper Association, $49,000 from Tanimura & Antle) and $10,000 from construction giant Don Chapin Company. In 2024, the PAC raised $79,500 total, from many of the same donors. They bet on a political strategy, and that strategy worked.

I have talked to some disillusioned Salinas voters who were energized by rent stabilization and then disheartened when the new council overturned that policy. This November, voters will decide on the fate of Salinas’ renter protection measures.

The political spending overlaps with support and opposition to the rent control repeal, which is drawing statewide campaign donors. Committees in support of keeping the policies (Protect Salinas Renters) have raised a combined $71,000 (the biggest sum of $10,000 from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation). A group opposing them – with a sneakily similar moniker, Protect Salinas Residents – has raised a massive $227,000 so far, with its biggest $60,000 contribution from the California Association of Realtors Issues Mobilization PAC.

While council decisions go far beyond rent stabilization, that singular issue has in many ways become a proxy in these divided times. Even during the primary campaign for District 2 county supervisor, which incumbent Glenn Church won handily, challenger Ramon Gomez told me one thing that distinguished him from Church was his position against rent control in Salinas – a policy that the county supervisors don’t actually have authority over.

Politics and policy are more complex than employer/employee, just like the Michigan Senate primary was more complex than a position on America’s relationship to Israel. But with big dollars aligning promoting single-issue messages, those issues get amplified even more loudly.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com