Palo Alto City Council candidate Yudy Deng said she ended her fundraising push on Oct. 2 — but her campaign kept collecting checks for two more weeks, pulling in roughly $16,000 according to finance forms, pushing her total haul to $182,131. That's far more than any other candidate in the race, and most of the fresh money, like much of her earlier fundraising, came from outside Palo Alto.
Deng, a Parks and Recreation Commissioner, brought in $7,374 from 14 Palo Alto donors and $8,628 from eight out-of-town donors during that stretch, according to finance forms reported by the Palo Alto Daily Post. Across her full campaign, only 55 of her 157 donations have come from within city limits — a pattern that has defined her fundraising since the summer.
Her opponent, Planning and Transportation Commissioner Bryna Chang, also kept collecting money after she said she had stopped, though in far smaller amounts: $1,977 from nine donors, eight of them Palo Alto residents. The ninth was a business and housing network based in Los Gatos. Chang ended her own fundraising shortly before Deng did.
Out-of-Town Money Fuels a Record-Breaking Campaign
Deng's reliance on donors beyond Palo Alto isn't new. Her campaign's own filing, covering July 1 through Sept. 19, showed she'd already brought in $166,128.92 in contributions year to date, including $83,822.11 in that single reporting period, according to a campaign filing published by padailypost.com. During that stretch, only 38% of her donations came from Palo Alto residents, per paloaltoonline.com, which also reported that $12,246 of her haul came from outside the Bay Area entirely. Chang, by contrast, drew 78% of her contributions from within the city, the outlet found.
Deng has said she asked friends from college, contacts in the nonprofit sector and people from her former home in Bellevue, Washington, to chip in, telling the Daily Post that most of her friends work as tech engineers, attorneys or in nonprofit circles. Palo Alto Online reported seven maximum individual contributions of $5,900 to her campaign.
A Crowded Field, a Lopsided Fundraising Gap
Deng and Chang are competing for one of three open seats on the Palo Alto City Council, alongside Mayor Vicki Veenker, Councilman Ed Lauing, Dr. Gary Gelchik, software engineer Brian Hamachek and Democratic Socialist candidate Raymond Goins. Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims opted not to seek reelection, leaving the seat open.
The gap between Deng and the rest of the field is stark. Veenker had raised $50,119 as of Sept. 25 according to campaign forms, while Lauing's forms show $51,506 total. Goins raised $4,428 over the course of his campaign, and Gelchik and Hamachek both reported no fundraising at all. Deng's haul also dwarfs what past front-runners pulled in at comparable points in their own campaigns — Councilman George Lu had raised $51,145 at the same point in the campaign two years earlier, and Lythcott-Haims had raised $69,561 in 2022, the Daily Post reported. It's a figure that even outpaces entire past campaigns: Greg Scharff raised about $97,000 over his whole 2014 reelection bid, and Arthur Keller brought in around $96,000 running for council in 2016, according to paloaltoonline.com.
What Happens to Money Raised After the Deadline
Deng has pushed back on any suggestion that the late influx of cash is improper, saying in September that she saw nothing suspicious about her fundraising. Palo Alto Online reported that the next major campaign finance deadline fell on Oct. 22, covering money raised from Sept. 20 through Oct. 17 — a window that would capture at least some of the contributions logged after Deng said she'd stopped soliciting donations.
State rules do lay out what's supposed to happen once a campaign committee winds down. The California Fair Political Practices Commission says contributions received after a committee is formally closed must be returned to the contributors, and that committees may be required to file additional special reports depending on the timing and size of contributions or expenditures. Separate FPPC guidance on terminating a candidate committee similarly states that any money received after termination has to go back to the donor. None of that guidance establishes what, if anything, applies to Deng's campaign specifically.
Outside the campaign trail, Deng also serves as chief development officer for the Society for Heart's De-light, a group focused on engaging Chinese immigrants in the South Bay, according to the Daily Post. With the fundraising window narrowing and both leading candidates still logging contributions after announcing they were done, the final tally — and any questions about how that late money is handled — may not be fully clear until the next round of filings becomes public.
