Follow the Money: Campaign finances for Mayor LaGrand’s re-election in 2028

We have now passed the November 3rd Election date, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thinking about politicians who are up for re-election in 2028.

One such politician is Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand. LaGrand will shortly complete year two of a four year term. As I have been documenting over the past two years Mayor LaGrand has enabled the Grand Rapids Power Structure to continue with development projects using massive amounts of public funding, has justified ongoing GRPD brutality by voting to fund whatever the GRPD want, and he has failed to listen to and adopt the 6 sanctuary policy demands of Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE, along with refusing to meet with them to have an open and honest conversation about how ICE is terrorizing immigrants, taking between 3 – 6 people every day in recent months.

However, this post is primarily about campaign finance documentation for David LaGrand. When LaGrand won the Mayoral position in 2024, he had raised $192,850.40, according to the County Clerk’s campaign finance data. As I noted in a 2024 post, David LaGrand received substantial funds from entities outside of Grand Rapids, developers, police apologists, members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure and other business people.

As of his most recent campaign finance reporting from 10/26/2026, LaGrand has already raised $36,731.97. During the past year of campaign finance data he continues to receive campaign contributions from various PACs, business people and members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, such as Johnny Brann.

Another group of people that have made significant contributions to LaGrand’s 2028 re-election bid are lawyers. Of the 32 people who contributed to LaGrand’s campaign and are included in the July 2026 campaign finance report, 29 of them are lawyers, with 1 judge, 1 financial advisor and 1 retiree.

Maybe this group of lawyers who contributed to LaGrand’s re-election campaign went to law school with him or maybe they are people he has a connection with because LaGrand is also a lawyer, but either way these people are not representative of the majority of the people who live in Grand Rapids. While Mayor LaGrand has presented himself as progressive, very little of what he has done over the past 22 months as Mayor of Grand Rapids should be considered progressive.