It was cheaper to oust Joel Engardio than to elect him, data shows

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The anti-recall effort was a lot of things, but it wasn’t cost-effective: Despite raising three times the money of the recallers, last week 63 percent of District 4 voters decided to recall Supervisor Joel Engardio .

And while “it’s always easier to be against something than to be for something,” as political strategist David Ho put it, it turns out it was much, much cheaper to be against Engardio, too.

The recall supporters spent just $257,090 to get rid of Engardio — $177,877 less than it took to elect him in the first place, back in 2022. That spend —