If you’re interested in Boston campaign finance for citywide races this cycle, you could also check out my previous posts on the mayoral race and the city council at-large race.

District 7 is a strange conglomeration of colleges and college neighborhoods, a piece of the South End in the North, and the predominantly Black neighborhoods of Roxbury and Grove Hall in the South. It’s the only district completely surrounded by Boston on all sides. In order to get on the general election ballot, you probably only need a little over a thousand votes.

But the District 7 city council race is one of the most hotly contested district city council races in years. The last district election to feature more candidates than this one was also in District 7, when Kim Janey was first elected in 2017 with a mere 25% of the vote in the preliminary. Rufus Faulk was her competitor in the general, and he earned only 11% of the preliminary vote.

There were 13 candidates that year, and 11 this year. They will be narrowed down to two on September 9th. And it may be a narrower race than last time.

Money really talks in a race like this. With so many candidates trying to stand out from the crowd, the money that buys advertising and campaign advising goes a lot further than in a one-on-one race. Once it gets to the general election, it will become more about inspiration and ideas, but for now a big part who is going to get the most investment.

A note on the data - I did not include contributions for candidates made prior to January 1, 2024.

Miniard Culpepper is sixth in funding of all the city council candidates, including city council at-large. The others aren’t far behind. A lot of money is coming into this race, which makes sense given that there’s no incumbent.

The count graph shuffles the candidates around a bit. The disparity between Hurtado, Bell, and the top four shrinks significantly. This graph, combined with the funding graph, give you a sense of how much each candidate is relying on large donations versus small. Hurtado and Bell, for example, spring up in support when looking at donation count compared with funding. Even among the top four, Ahmed and Afonso leap Abdikarim when comparing funding with donation count.

So, the mean in the above graph is the funding divided by the donation count, which shows you roughly how much support for each candidate is coming from large donations versus small donations. There are really no outliers here - the distribution is remarkably even. That said, there’s also $300 difference between Juba-Sutherland’s mean donation and Bell’s mean donation. If you value a candidate who’s more likely to be for poorer residents of the city, you’ll probably want to choose somebody towards the right of this graph.

Median represents the value that divides the top half of the donations from the bottom half, and mode represents the most common donation value. Of the five largest candidates - those likeliest to have a shot in our cash-based political system - Culpepper and Abdikarim stand out as having a higher median donation. It’s not just outlier donations driving their mean, they actually have a wealthier donor base they’re drawing from. Modes aren’t outlandish either, although of the biggest candidates the most common donation doesn’t drop below $100. Nelson and Bell, two smaller candidates (Bell has 65 donations, not bad at all actually), have below $100 modes, so their support looks like it’s a bit more grassroots than the other candidates.

The distinction between slices of donations - the number of individual donations made - and slices of funding - the total amount of those donations - may seem arbitrary, but depending on the size of the donations can make a huge difference in how much the campaign will care about donations from each location.

We see a huge difference between the funding sources of each of the candidates here, which the mayoral and city council at-large races don’t have. Some of the district candidates receive the vast majority of their funding from within Boston, while others receive nearly half of their funding from outside the state. For a voter who wants a city councilor with strong incentive to support the community, this is definitely worth paying attention to. Some of the candidates have personal histories that explain these disparities, which I’ll dig into a bit more below. But, the majority of your funding for Boston City Council coming from outside Boston certainly isn’t a good look.

Said Abdikarim previously ran for at-large city council in 2021 before he lost in the preliminary election with 2.8% of the vote, and endorsed Erin Murphy in the general. Now he’s back to contest his home district.

Known locally as “orange shirt man” from his trademark orange shirt, which was supposedly the "first shirt he received upon arriving in Boston" - but where from I wasn’t able to find. According to his Linkedin, he is the Director of Policy Advocacy & Civic Engagement at the African Community Economic Development of New England (ACEDONE), which aims to provide education and resources to African immigrant youth with the goal of fostering a more robust immigrant community. They offer K-8 after school programs, as well as housing and small business assistance. Abdikarim is not listed on their People page anymore though.

Also according to his Linkedin, he is a steering committee member of the Boston Park Advocates, although he’s also not listed on their page - not that community groups tend to be super diligent updating their websites. He also earns the distinction of having his family be the first thing on his campaign website instead of a giant picture of himself, although that’s there too if you scroll down a bit.

Abdikarim’s support from within Boston is highly concentrated in District 7, receiving a sizeable portion of his support from Roxbury. He also pulls the highest percentage of any candidate from Roxbury Crossing, 02120, comprised of Mission Hill and a swath of developments around Tremont St.

As far as association with mayoral candidates goes, Abdikarim is among the most independent. Unencumbered by ties to any particular mayoral candidate, it’s likely that he would be an honest advocate for his district. But the evidence against that is that so much of his money doesn’t come from his district. Only 35% of his funding comes from within Boston, the lowest of any candidate. A whopping 42% doesn’t even come from the state of MA. For someone who claims to have such deep ties in the community, it’s strange to see so much funding coming from all over the country.

I took a look at the campaign’s expenditures to see if I could figure out what funding strategy the campaign is using to get this result, but the expenditures reporting is so low on detail and confusing I wasn’t able to get much out of it. I did see this though:

In the end, he may end up being an advocate for the community. But the funding strategy is not community-based.

Mavrick Afonso is the “Director of External Affairs at the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC).” The EOHLC is a branch of the Governor’s office, which - according to their website - “offers programs to help prevent homelessness and to help people afford housing. It also offers housing programs and financial assistance for municipalities, local housing authorities, non-profit organizations, and developers.” Will this housing expertise be brought to bear in Boston, where it’s as sorely needed as anywhere in the state?

Mavrick gets a lot of his in-Boston funding from Grove Hall, but a lot of it comes from all over the place, including the vast majority from outside District 7. And Boston is only 45% of his funding. The 43% of his funding that comes from the rest of MA may be the result of his connections from the Governor’s office. Professors, contractors, CEOs, developers, attorneys - it’s a little of everything, though to my eyes it’s more white-collar than blue.

Afonso claims significant support from Wu donors compared with many of the other candidates. It fits in with the support he’s receiving from white-collar suburbanites who are more on the progressive end.

Said Ahmed is a former BPS educator, national track runner, and co-founder of Boston United Track and Cross Country Club. This is Ahmed’s first time running for city council. He has recently faced allegations of harassing voters at polling places from fellow candidate Said Abdikarim. He also has had some harassment allegations brought forward by Deeqo Jibril, Director of Small Business Development at the state Executive Office of Economic Development. Per the Globe, the harassment has involved “Ahmed spreading rumors about her sexuality, posting defamatory comments on Facebook (and later deleting them), and telling other members of the Somali community that she is ‘not a good Muslim.’” Not a great look.

62% of his funding comes from within Boston, which is the most of the top-five candidates in the race. Of that funding, you can see that a majority comes from within District 7, and he clearly seems to have one of the most community-oriented campaigns when it comes to the money. Based on this donation data, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up in the general election.

Ahmed really doesn’t have much correlation with any particular mayoral candidate, but he does earn the distinction of being the only District 7 candidate with a donation from Josh Kraft himself, a cool $1,000. How he earned it for himself is a bit unclear. His policies sound pretty progressive on paper - rent control, affordable housing requirements, and equitable BPS funding aren’t exactly on Kraft’s playbook. But who knows? Boston politics are done in the backroom, not in the limelight.

WaWa Bell is the co-founder of the Nubian Square Foundation - which is “building a model for community-led development – centered on self-determination, cultural pride, and sustainable investment.” He got into the race back in April and hasn’t run for office in Boston before. His campaign planks include affordable housing policies, BIPOC business support, and restorative and reparative justice.

Bell is exactly the kind of candidate our campaign finance system fails. 83% of his donations came from within Boston - the highest percent of any candidate. Of those donations 65% came from Roxbury. If campaign funding was restricted to only being from his district, and if Boston had public matching funds for its homegrown candidates, he may have ended up with the most funding of any candidates. As it is, his $4,800 from 65 donors - mostly from within his own district and with a mean donation of just $74 - is an obvious testament to his grassroots support.

He has among the largest difference between his contributions and his funding - we call this the law of small numbers in the data viz biz. Almost all of the funding from Wu donors is $800 from Andrea James, Director of The National Council For Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, who’s also running for governor in 2026. His one Kraft donor is Priscilla Flint, co-founder of the Black Economic Justice Institute and former city council at-large candidate. It seems to me that these donations are more statistical aberrations than saying anything about Bell’s campaign ties.

Tchad Cort is a transportation specialist for BPS and a BTU organizer. I couldn’t find much more information on her. The campaign presence online is pretty lowkey.

Her campaign map doesn’t feature much of District 7. Of the 9 donations I could identify with a Boston zip code, only 2 were from the district. This is a map I probably could have skipped - having so few data points makes for poor data - but I decided to leave it here so you can make of it what you will.

Not much of note here either, her numbers of Wu donors are about average for the field.

Miniard Culpepper is a long-standing community member. He is the pastor of the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church on Humboldt Ave. He also has connections to DC, having served at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development as acting director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Clinton administration and appearing in photographs with Barack Obama. He apparently worked on various political campaigns back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and the Pleasant Hill Church website even claims that he is a member of various courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, which I can only assume is some sort of strange error in a run-on sentence.

In recent years, he ran for the 2nd Suffolk State Senate seat where he came in fourth after Liz Miranda, Nika Elugardo, and Dianne Wilkerson - but not a distant fourth. He was also critical in founding the Black Men’s Political Task Force, an organization hoping to provide resources and training for Black men to become more politically involved in Boston, a goal which in principle fits the bill for a District 7 city councilor. Hopefully he can drive some of those men out for him on the 9th.

As you can see, Culpepper pulls widely from Grove Hall and Roxbury, the cores of District 7, and even extends outside District 7 into Mattapan and Hyde Park. He also has the highest donation count and funding total of any candidate. The problem? Only about a third of that funding comes from Boston, and about a third comes from outside MA entirely - a number which is shockingly not out of place in the race.

I was curious about whether there were any patterns among the out of state donations, but I wasn’t able to pick anything out in particular. I think it’s safe to assume Culpepper is pulling on his ties from his time in Washington and maybe even his alma maters Brandeis and Howard University.

Culpepper receives a pretty significant portion of his funding from Wu donors compared with the other candidates, which may speak to some more intensive downtown connections. Many of these particular donors are attorneys and political/legal consultants.

But ultimately, with the pastor’s connections to the community, local politicians, and national politicians, it may be hard to say just from looking at the money what kind of councilor he’ll be.

Samuel Hurtado is the current Supplier Diversity Business Manager at the City of Boston, which means he has something to do with procuring contracts for the city with minority- and women-owned businesses. Before that, he was the Chief of Staff for Kim Janey from the time she entered office in 2018 until 2021, when he transitioned to Senior Advisor to the Mayor during her interim term. He must have some appeal with Michelle Wu, because he was kept on with the city after Janey lost the election.

He is the only non-Black candidate in a district where MLK Jr, Malcolm X and Melnea Cass are the boulevards and the central hub is Nubian Square. Roxbury, for those who are new to city politics, has been the heart of Black culture in Boston for three-quarters of a century. In a district that has had a Black councilor for the entire 21st century and longer, and that has a fair amount of suspicion towards officials of the current administration, it’s hard to see how that’s likely to change anytime soon.

He’s also fifth on the funding front, putting him in the middle of the pack. Since money does make a huge impact in a campaign, it’s hard to say whether his ideas will be able to make up the difference.

But then again, who knows? Hurtado has received a significant amount of donations from the South End, an often ignored segment of District 7. And from my mostly 20-something youth interactions, he seems to have a good deal of support for them, which might help him in the also often ignored Mission Hill. And it’s not like he’s a slouch in the core of Roxbury either compared with the other candidates, although he could certainly stand to receive a few more donations from Grove Hall (in District 7) as opposed to Jamaica Plain (not in District 7).

And he receives a much greater portion of his donations from within the city than Afonso, Culpepper, and Abdikarim, although around the same as Ahmed. He also falls lower than all those candidates in mean donation, which maybe indicates some grassroots support.

But his ties to Michelle Wu - and even the percent of his funding from Kraft supporters - are greater than any other candidate, which may owe to the amount of funding he receives from the South End. In a district that undoubtedly values independence from the political machine, it may be more difficult for him to argue he’ll be an independent voice when the percent of his funding affiliated with mayoral candidates is the most.

Natalie Juba-Sutherland is a home owner and small business lender. The information on her website is about all I can find on her. Her campaign has featured talking up homeownership and financial literacy as a pathway to wealth for Bostonians. After all, it worked for her as an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago. As happy as I am that she was able to buy her own home and as glad as I would be to see more owner-occupied housing in Boston, I doubt the many suburban landlords are going to quickly part with their property.

I didn’t include a mayoral campaign correlation graph for Juba-Sutherland because of her 8 donations, none were from mayoral donors. If you want to get a look at her donations, here they are.

Jerome King has no campaign website except for a Facebook page with minimal information. On this page you can find images of campaign signs:

Him at the Josh Kraft campaign office:

Including this fantastic clip with Ronnie DeVoe Jr. of New Edition performing a rendition of Poison.

How did he get signs while having 0 campaign contributions? Your guess is as good as mine. He was a candidate for District 7 back in 2023 when he garnered an even 200 votes, which accounted for a shocking 8% of the total votes in that election. But he came in fourth that time, and with hardly any campaigning this time, he likely won’t get into the general.

Thanks to King for getting me on a New Jack kick this evening.

Shawn Nelson is an ex-Marine and nursing assistant, Independent Conservative running for office. He aspires to take on the “political games” in Boston. I can relate to that.

I didn’t include a mayoral campaign correlation graph for Nelson because of his 8 donations, none were from mayoral donors. If you want to get a look at his donations, here they are.

Last but certainly not least, Roy Owens, who has run for office 15 times now, almost annually since 2006. There have been many intriguing articles written about him over the years. I won’t say much more because Universal Hub already wrote the book on him. For one of the best rabbit holes Boston local history has to offer, here you go.

Strangely enough, he’s been the number two candidate in the last three District 7 city council races. So who knows, maybe he will be yet again.

I didn’t include a mayoral campaign correlation graph for Owens because of his 2 donations, none were from mayoral donors. Here they are.

I hope this was helpful for everyone trying to get a handle on this race. Sorry I’m dropping it two days out and after many have probably already sent in their ballots or voted early. There aren’t too many surprises, but at least you can use the money to get an idea of where the candidates are coming from and how to most strategically place your vote. Money does play a role in a race like this but so does the way that money is used. Just because a candidate has the most money doesn’t mean they’ll end up in the general election.

Unfortunately, in an election like this you have very little ability to strategically vote. You could vote for someone who doesn’t even make it to the general, and let someone you like less get on the ballot. If we had ranked choice elections then you would be able to rest assured your ballot will impact the election in some way. But in this case, all I can say is - vote your conscience, and good luck.