County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who is termed out and running for the 48th Congressional District seat, spent almost $250,000 in public funds the first eight months of the year to expand his already strong social media presence.
Desmond often uses his official county supervisor accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X to not only keep his constituents updated, but also to share short videos about his position on different policies, his point of view and his work in District 5, which covers a lot of North County.
They include high-definition visuals, crisp editing and often finish with a glossy overlay of Desmond’s District 5 supervisor logo. They have all the elements of an advertisement. They essentially are.
From January to early September of this year, Desmond’s office spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of county funds on advertising, a review of public records revealed.
That includes paid promotions of hundreds of his videos across his social media accounts, as well as paid ads on television channels like Hulu and HBO Max.
The funds came from the allotted budget he receives as a supervisor. Each supervisor’s office received a budget of around $3.6 million for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, Tammy Glenn, communications director for the county, confirmed. They tend to use that money to pay for things like office supplies, printing services and event registration fees.
Desmond’s office has stretched its pot of funds much further, records show, spending $249,470 on advertising. Around $62,000 of that total went to Target River, a marketing agency based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The rest of it went to Google, Meta, Disney and X directly. All invoices were billed to County Supervisor Jim Desmond or Miles Himmel, the communications director for Desmond in his role as a supervisor.
Glenn shared the county’s policy on managing and recording spending from this fund, but she did not say whether there are restrictions to supervisors’ office spending, nor did she comment on Desmond’s expenditures.
“Public funds are expended in accordance with board policy and state law,” Glenn said via email.
The ads themselves seem to be doing very well. Almost all the videos on his office’s YouTube page that were posted in the last six months received anywhere from 140,000 views to almost 600,000. Most videos posted before that time received views in the hundreds. Records show Desmond’s office didn’t begin paying for YouTube advertising until late April.
His latest YouTube video about how governments should always prioritize first responders when allocating funds has 236,000 views. In the video, he says first responders should not have to rely on voters to approve a sales tax increase to get the funding that they need. Desmond has been a vocal opponent of the county-wide tax increase proposal on the November ballot.
The video before that, which, ironically, criticizes the county for using taxpayer dollars to conduct a poll about the proposed countywide tax measure, Measure B, received 352,000 views.
“Your own money was spent out to find the best way to reach deeper into your pockets,” he says in the video while sitting at his desk. He goes on to explain a policy he has proposed to create guardrails around county-funded polling.
In another video, he promotes a car seat giveaway event at the San Marcos Sheriff’s substation.
None of the other four supervisors, except for Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, used their allocated money for advertising between January and early September. Lawson-Remer’s office spent about $11,300 on Facebook advertising during that time frame.
While Desmond’s office has been getting hundreds of thousands of views on its YouTube videos, the other supervisors’ videos receive views in the lower hundreds. He has 4,500 YouTube subscribers compared to the other supervisors’ YouTube accounts that are all in the low hundreds.
Desmond’s supervisor Instagram account has 27,000 followers. He also has 19,000 followers on his Facebook account and 21,000 on X. District 1 Supervisor Paloma Aguirre’s Instagram account has the second-highest number of followers with 3,500. On Facebook, District 2 Supervisor Joel Anderson, formerly a California senator, comes in second to Desmond with 13,800 followers. Meanwhile, the other supervisors’ Facebook accounts don’t surpass 2,000 followers. And finally, on X, Anderson comes in second to Desmond with 5,400 followers; the others range from 1,000 to almost 3,000 followers.
The Congressional Elephant in the Room
In less than three weeks, voters in the 48th Congressional District will decide between Desmond, a Republican, and San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, a Democrat, to be their next representative, replacing longtime Republican congressman Darrell Issa.
The stakes could not be higher. After California voters passed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting measure, Proposition 50, last year, creating five new, Democrat-leaning congressional districts — including the 48th — Democrats are hoping to flip the seat. Seeing his chances for re-election dwindling, Issa dropped out in April and tapped termed-out Desmond to run instead.
With control of the House of Representatives hanging in the balance, Desmond enters the final stretch of the race armed with a massive advantage: his social media presence, which, over the past eight months, has grown using public dollars.
In comparison, Von Wilpert’s official councilmember Facebook account has 1,900 followers, her official Instagram account has 2,200 followers, her X account has 2,300 and on YouTube, she has 20 followers.
Desmond’s chief of staff, Darren Gretler, sent a statement via email:
“Since Supervisor Desmond took office, we’ve made keeping our constituents in North County informed a top priority, and we’ve used every tool available to do it. We’re proud of our constituent outreach, responsiveness and overall communication.
When San Diego County residents faced a proposed Sexually Violent Predator placement, we made sure they knew about it in time to speak up, and when flooding and emergencies hit, we got alerts and resources out fast. That’s what this office is here to do.”