The TAB has published a report — complete with several charts and graphs — showing how much mayoral candidates Ruthanne Fuller and Scott Lennon have raised. It’s worth going to Wicked Local to see the charts be here’s two excerpts:
Ruthanne Fuller, the current councilor-at-large who topped this preliminary election, collected more than $284,000 in campaign donations as of the Oct. 5 filing with the OCPF. Of that sum, approximately 61 percent came from Newton residents. She had more donors from Chestnut Hill and Newton Centre than from any other zip code, according to the OCPF data.
City Council President Scott Lennon, who finished a close second in the preliminary mayoral contest, received more than $231,000 in campaign donations as of the Oct. 5 filing. Of the money raised, roughly 68 percent came from residents of Newton. More of his donors came from the 02458 zip code, which covers the northeastern part of the city near the Brighton and Watertown lines (Newton Corner and Nonantum), than from any other zip code. His second-strongest base of financial support, based on campaign contributions, was West Newton.
The data point I am interested in is 1) the number of individual donors and 2) the average donation.
I just got polled by CP Partners. They asked 4 questions: Are you likely to Vote for Scott Lennon – 1-5; Are you likely to vote for Ruthanne Fuller 1-5; Favorability of Ruthanne Fuller as a City Councilor 1- 5; and Favorability of Scott Lennon as a City Councilor 1 – 5.
Anyone else get polled?
Fuller has approx 946 contributions averaging $328 and 163 $1000 donations
Lennon has appro 1048 contributions averaging $248 and 62 $1000 donations
Those are not unique contributors as some donated multiple times but haven’t dug into that
Use your cursor to hover over those $1000 donations. Big big money doesn’t necessarily translate to votes – money coming in from Hingham, Weston, Brookline, Michigan, New York, Chicago.
Here is the link for any who are interested
https://www.ocpf.us/Reports/SearchItems
@Greg,
Sorry to hijack this thread, but it dawned on me that there’s a question that I’ve never heard asked here, or in any other forum.
Do either of them have aspirations for higher offices beyond Newton?
@Randy, why do you ask?
Oh, right. Never mind.
Here’s info from the expenditures side of the ledger about the cost-per-vote-earned. The list below shows how much each campaign spent (up through the Preliminary Election) per vote that it received in that election.
Fuller: $31.84
Lennon: $29.68
Sangiolo: $15.94
Saunders: $9.49
Katzoff: $6.61
Cecchinelli: $3.23
Woodward: $0.00
Who is Wenhua Zhang and why has he contributed thousands to a few candidates?
Amy did an amazing job on a shoestring??
@Claire – Thanks for the link. It’s a bit of a rabbit hole and kind of addicting.
Interesting detail of Wenhua Zhang is that his declared occupation seems to alternate back and forth between “unemployed” and “Managing Partner of Azia Capital”. Maybe he only works Tuesdays and Thursdays ;-)
@Jerry Reilly definitely a rabbit hole for a data junkie like me. Wenhau Zhang ran for the Charter Commission. Seems he is looking to influence something
https://vimeo.com/141322606