City Councillors John Correggio and Tony Zambuto far outspent and far outraised every other councillor in the at-large Council race this year, but with far different results.
While Correggio led the field in spending and raised more money than everyone else, he failed to get a seat. Meanwhile, Zambuto was second in both categories, yet scored one of the better votes he has had during his political career.
The campaign finance reports for the race were recently submitted to the City’s Election Department and cover the period from Jan. 1 to Oct. 23. A second report covering spending and fundraising for the last two weeks of the election through December will come out in January.
Correggio nearly doubled all other candidates in expenditures, spending $22,500 during the period. Most of his expenditures were for consulting and mailings – as well as printing costs for campaign literature.
Second was Tony Zambuto, who finished a strong third place in the five-person race, with expenditures of $12,340. A majority of his expenses were to the Alden Hauk Co. of Woburn. That company coordinated his bulk mailings of campaign literature.
Third in spending was Councillor Brian Arrigo, who spent $8,686. However, most of that came in loan repayments to himself earlier in the year. He did spend about $1,000 on campaign literature later in the year.
Councillor Bob Haas was fourth in spending with $7,445 – which was good for a strong second place finish.
The top vote getter by a large margin, Jessica Giannino, was fifth in spending. She spent $5,956 on the campaign for campaign literature and T-Shirts.
Others were:
•Steven Morabito (4th place) was sixth in spending with $3,319.
•Walter Kovil (8th) was seventh in spending with $1,962.
Candidate George Rotondo had not turned in a campaign finance report by the deadline, and his figures could not be contained in this story.
Meanwhile, on the fundraising side, Correggio pulled in $24,695 this time around, mostly from his broad array of union support locally and in Boston.
Zambuto was second in fund-raising with $20,451 – almost entirely from grass-roots supporters in Revere, East Boston and Winthrop. He had nearly no union dollars this time in his campaign chest.
Haas was third, raising a strong $16,324, while Giannino showed strength in raising $12,020 – coming mainly from members of the Fire Department, where her family has long-time connections.
The rest were as follows:
•Arrigo, $9,037
•Morabito, $4,860
•Kovil, $1,975
