Big money is flooding into the Philly mayor’s election. Here is how it’s shaping the race.

Big money is flooding Philadelphia’s mayoral race. And it’s coming from a small number of people with deep pockets.

More than $22.2 million had already poured into the race as of last week, new city campaign finance filings show. So far, about $17.5 million has been spent by the campaigns and outside spending groups backing them. Both of those figures are certain to rise as the May 16 Democratic primary election nears, with a crowded field of candidates and no clear front-runner.

An Inquirer analysis of the new data reveals that the overwhelming majority of the funds raised in the mayoral primary has come from three sources:

Less than $3 million of the $22.2 million came from individual donors giving campaigns $1,000 or less. And no campaign raised more than 10% of its money from donors giving $100 or less.

Those big checks translate into the ability to pay staff, run TV ads, hire canvassers to knock on doors, and pay ward leaders in the hopes of winning their endorsements. Effective fundraising can also be a self-perpetuating cycle, as donors want to ensure that they’re giving to viable candidates.

For better or worse, fundraising remains the lifeblood of campaigns — but it isn’t everything. The richest candidates often fail to win, and poorly funded candidates sometimes prevail.

In 2007, businessman Tom Knox spent $11 million of his own money in the mayoral primary, only to be defeated handily by Michael Nutter. And in 2015, a super PAC spent nearly $7 million on behalf of Anthony Hardy Williams, who likewise went down to defeat against Jim Kenney.

Still, the big checks flooding into this year’s election are making it difficult for even some of the serious contenders to keep up.

For instance, former City Councilmember Maria Quiñones Sánchez announced Sunday that she was suspending her mayoral campaign, citing the “obnoxious, obscene amount of money that is shaping the race. ... There was no way we were going to be able to compete with that money.”

She had raised nearly $800,000 with less than six weeks to go before the primary, a sum that City Hall lobbyist Mustafa Rashed said would have made her a competitive candidate in past election cycles. But Quiñones Sánchez, who represented a Kensington-based Council district, has struggled to gain traction this year.

“That’s an extraordinary accomplishment for someone who sits in one of the poorer districts in the commonwealth,” Rashed said. “But in comparison to what the field is doing right now, it’s not enough.”

The Inquirer’s analysis of the Democratic candidates relies on new campaign finance reports filed on Sunday by campaigns and super PACs. The data cover the period from the beginning of the year through March 31, which, combined with last year’s filings, provide a complete picture of money in the campaign to date.

Our analysis includes funds raised by candidates in 2022 before they officially announced their runs, since that money was available to them and was reported in their filings. The analysis excludes Amen Brown, who didn’t file this cycle, and Quiñones Sánchez, whose 2022 data contained inconsistencies.

Here’s what our analysis found.

Several candidates have lent or contributed money to their own campaigns. Amen Brown gave his campaign $25; Quiñones Sánchez gave herself $10,000; Helen Gym gave herself $25,000; and Jeff Brown gave himself more than $1 million.

But one candidate stands out: As of last month, Allan Domb has poured $7 million into his own campaign.

Domb’s self-funding also jump-started the arms race for other campaigns by triggering what’s known as the “millionaire’s amendment” in Philadelphia’s campaign finance laws. That rule doubles the maximum size of donations that candidates can collect from donors, allowing this year’s contenders to take in checks of as much as $6,200 from individuals and $25,200 from political action committees.

“When Allan Domb triggered the millionaire’s exception, that became the floor and not the ceiling of what was going to happen for this race,” Rashed said. “I don’t think any of us were prepared to see $13 million [spent] in this race and still six weeks to go.”

Even with the increased fundraising abilities Domb afforded his opponents, his level of self-funding has allowed him to dramatically outspend the rest of the field on advertising.

In late 2022, Domb’s campaign was burning through cash, spending at a far faster clip than any other campaign, and without the fundraising to pay for it. But on Dec. 31, Domb lent his campaign $5 million, giving him wide latitude to keep spending. Then, in March, he wrote himself an additional $2 million check, replenishing his coffers.

That obliterated any cash advantage other candidates had from fundraising. Together, those campaigns raised $8 million, excluding their own self-funding.

“Allan Domb has independently invested his own resources into this campaign,” Domb spokesperson Jared Leopold said in a statement. “While others make promises to secret donors behind closed doors, Allan’s only commitment is to the people of Philadelphia.”

Still, it remains to be seen what the impact of all that money will be. Domb lags other candidates in endorsements, and past self-funders have sometimes been more successful in gaining attention than support.

Knox holds the Philadelphia record for the most amount of money invested by a candidate in a losing race, effectively spending $150 per vote for a second-place finish.

No matter how effective campaigns are at soliciting big donors, they’re constrained in one important way: By law, donors are allowed to give only a certain amount to a campaign.

But they can give as much as they want to super PACs.

For that reason, super PACs — which are independent from campaigns and prohibited from coordinating with them — have become essential in all kinds of elections by spending huge amounts to support or oppose specific candidates.

Super PACs outspent the campaigns themselves in the city’s Democratic primaries for mayor in 2015 and 2019.

Super PACs sometimes do candidates’ dirty work by attacking opponents while the campaign itself boosts the candidate. They can also help spread resources across the electoral calendar.

Gym’s campaign this year has spent about $128,000 airing ads. But a super PAC backing her has already spent nearly five times that amount. The PAC’s spending got pro-Gym ads on TV while the campaign was able to stockpile money for the home stretch of the race.

“It was always our intention to ramp things up at the right time when regular voters start paying attention, and leave it to insiders and the self-funding millionaires in the race to light their money on fire as early as my Christmas vacation,” Gym campaign manager Brendan McPhillips said in a statement.

Super PAC spending is sure to swell in the remaining six weeks before the primary. Jeff Brown, Cherelle L. Parker, and Rebecca Rhynhart also have super PACs backing them.

The super PAC backing Rhynhart just got started with $100,000 in seed money from Philadelphia millionaire Richard Vague two weeks ago.

Parker has consolidated support among the city’s building trades unions, including the Laborers, electricians and carpenters. Those unions were crucial to a super PAC effort that elected Kenney in 2015 despite being outspent by Williams supporters’ super PAC.

They returned in 2019 to make sure Kenney won a second term, in the face of opposition from the soda industry angry about Kenney’s tax on sweetened beverages.

The soda industry sank nearly $1.5 million into commercials and other efforts critical of the incumbent before the Democratic primary. Kenney won while barely campaigning.

Despite the outsized influence of self-funders and super PACs, the core of a campaign’s funding comes from individual donors. And every major mayoral candidate has needed large-dollar donors to be competitive.

That’s true even for campaigns that tout widespread grassroots support. For instance, more than 700 of Gym’s donors have given less than $50, and more than 300 of Rhynhart’s have given similarly small donations.

Gym said she is “proud to be running a campaign with the strongest grassroots support.”

“While other candidates are beholden to special interest groups, dark money, and Wall Street, the lifeblood of my campaign is the 2,153 individual grassroots donors and my partners in the labor movement,” she said in a statement.

Even so, two-thirds of the money Gym has raised comes from contributions exceeding $1,000, and about 60% of Rhynhart’s does.

That figure is even larger for Parker and Jeff Brown, whose fundraising overwhelmingly comes from donations over $1,000. And no candidate receives more than 10% from contributions under $100.

This story was updated after an earlier version of this story misstated Richard Vague’s financial status.