September 19, 2020 at 8:32 pm

Stockton mayoral candidate Kevin Lincoln continued to outpace incumbent Michael Tubbs in fundraising this week, receiving almost $24,000 on Thursday and Friday. In contrast, Tubbs has only pulled in $5,500 since last Saturday, entirely in donations from individuals.

Lincoln’s financial numbers were significantly helped by a $10,000 contribution from the Bank of Stockton, among the largest in the race so far. Tubbs also received $10,000 from Bay Area-based venture capitalist Reid Hoffman on August 21. Lincoln has previously pulled in other similarly sized donations as well: $10,000 and $15,000 from the Stockton firefighters’ and police unions respectively.

The Laborers International Union of North America Local 1309 also donated $2,000 to Lincoln on Thursday. The union represents roughly 500,000 infrastructure, energy, and public employees total throughout the United States in Canada. The Local 1309 is based in Lakewood. The Stockton chapter, Local 73, has not donated to Lincoln.

The rest of Lincoln’s donors were individuals or businesses located in the Stockton-Lodi area, with the exception of Moreno Trenching in Rio Vista. Phoenix Construction Group owner Ben Dominguez, farmer Rudy Maggio, and RLD Partners were among the larger donors.

Apart from the contribution from the Bank of Stockton, all of Lincoln’s recent donations came on Thursday. Lincoln has raised a total of $87,400 from 30 contributors so far, not counting small donations. Most of those that have currently been disclosed are over $1,000.

Tubbs has only received four donations since last Saturday, all from individuals located in the Bay Area. Michelle Boyers ($1,000 on September 16), John Riccitiello ($1,000 on September 16), Jenny Risk ($2,500 on September 16), and Regan Pritzker ($1,000 on September 12) were the contributors.

Riccitiello is a somewhat prominent figure as the CEO of Unity Technologies, a game software development company whose engines and owned companies have been used on Pokemon Go, Fortnite, and League of Legends. This is not the first time that Tubbs has received donations from someone in the gaming industry. On August 5, Riot Games (which has worked with Unity Technologies in the past) developer Marc Merrill donated $5,000. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the relation is anything but purely coincidental.

Tubbs has pulled in a total of $34,000 in large donations so far, less than half of what Lincoln has accumulated. However, this might change when small contribution numbers are disclosed next week. During the last campaign finance filing period from February 26 to June 30, Tubbs raised more than $235,000, while Lincoln only brought in a little less than $6,800.