The election is over, Palm Springs has a new mayor, and Ginny Foat has learned that the candidate who raises the most money, does not always win the election.
In total, more than a million dollars in donations were raised by candidates for the Palm Springs election (which is insane) with Foat alone raising more than a quarter of a million dollars – according to the Desert Sun.
Foat, who lost to Robert Moon, received 2,420 votes in the election for Palm Springs mayor. That breaks down to a whopping $103.31 per vote received (for that kind of coin, she could have instead just bought all of her voters an entire year of Amazon Prime or paid for them all to go to Vegas for a night).
Harold Matzner, the chair of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, donated at least $150,000 to Foat’s campaign during the election. His money received a return of $61.98 per vote.
Matzner-backed city council candidates fared better – with Geoff Kors winning a council seat and J.R. Roberts and Paul Lewin in a too-close-to-call situation (as of Wednesday morning) for the other council seat. Matzner donated at least $85,549 to the 3 city council candidates according to The Desert Sun.
Overall, the 3 Matzner-backed council candidates received 14,108 votes – which breaks down to $6.06 per vote.
