This past November, around 20% of Livonia’s eligible voters turned out to elect Livonia’s. Up for the choosing was the city’s executive positions (mayor, clerk, treasurer) and the legislative body – the city council. This year, Livonia had six candidates for city council – with the first three winning a four year term and the forth place winning a two year term.

Many voters are not sure just how much money it takes to win a local race, or even the type of expenses candidates accrue while they are running. Candidates are required to fill out detailed campaign reports, documenting the details of every contribution made to their campaign and the details of every expense made with campaign contributions.

In 2023, Livonia’s six council candidates raised over 138,000 dollars, not including the funds carried over from council’s two incumbents –  Scott Morgan and Brandon McCullough – or past Michigan State Representative candidate Martha Ptashnik. No candidate primarily self-funded their campaign, instead relying on contributions. Individuals accounted for most of the campaign contributions, with some candidates receiving more substantial donations from state political action committees.

Candidates on average relied on substantial individual donations. The graph is the average donation amount after removing the amount that candidates donated to themselves, and the amount that candidates carried over from past years.

Livonia’s council candidates made good use of their campaign contributions. In total, council candidates spent nearly 150k on campaign related expenditures. The graphic below shows a condensed version of all candidate campaign expenditures. The expenditures below have been consolidated from over 60 different types of expenses. Vote.Run.Serve grouped similar expenses into single categories to simplify the graphic below. Candidate expenses like candidate clothing and professional dues membership were grouped into one category – campaign expenses. Similarly, online transaction fees and account charges were grouped into another single category – bank charges.