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Super PACs flood Boston mayor's race with cash: Who's spending what
Just in time for the weather to warm up, super PACs backing Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and main challenger Josh Kraft are turning up the heat in the race for City Hall.
All told, independent expenditure groups on either side of the already tense mayoral campaign recently have poured nearly $1 million into the contest, state records show.
The pro-Wu super PAC Bold Boston reported raising $743,000 between Jan. 1 and June 12, according to a report filed with the state's Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The group reported spending $256,114.
The money underwrote a campaign commercial highlighting supporters of President Donald who donated to a pro-Kraft super PAC.
Two big donors to that super PAC included the political arms of the Environmental League of Massachusetts and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who respectively donated $175,000 and $50,000, records showed.
The pro-Kraft Your City, Your Future, meanwhile, reported raising $230,100 between May 30 and June 18, state filings show. That comes on top of the $2.4 million the super PAC raised in the opening months of the race.
Read More: Boston Mayor Wu slams Kraft over claims White Stadium cost secretly spiked
On Friday, Wu's reelection campaign went on the attack, singling out John Paulson, a supporter of President Donald Trump, who made a $100,000 contribution to the pro-Kraft super PAC earlier this month.
Paulson is the president of the New York City-based hedge fund firm Paulson & Co.
A report by Forbes put the investor's net worth at $3.8 billion. He made his money by 'betting against subprime mortgages at the peak of the 2007 credit bubble,' according to Forbes.
Last year, Paulson notably threatened to pull his money from the market if former Vice President Kamala Harris prevailed over Trump, according to Vanity Fair.
'Every single day, Donald Trump and his administration attack Boston and everything that makes our city the greatest in the world. It's not enough that Trump and his minions attack our community; now they are trying to buy the city too,' Wu's campaign said in a statement.
Under state law, campaigns and independent expenditure groups are forbidden from coordinating with each other.
Kraft has previously dismissed accusations that he's trying to buy the race.
'The power of incumbency is a real thing,' Kraft said in a Friday statement to The Boston Herald. 'While Mayor Wu appears to be running her campaign out of City Hall, I have a fully staffed campaign team, including a campaign headquarters in Nubian Square.'
Read More: Out-of-town money floods Boston mayor's race
Through Friday, Wu's campaign was sitting on $2.3 million in cash on hand, state filings showed.
Kraft, who injected $2 million of his own money into his campaign, was just behind at $1.95 million, state filings showed.
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Read the original article on MassLive.
