Boston mayor’s race has racial divide in fund raising

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An unmistakable divide has emerged in Boston’s wide-open race for mayor: Fund-raising has been dominated by white candidates.

By mid-August, no candidate of color had raised more than $220,000. Four white candidates had amassed two to four times as much in the same crucial stretch leading to September’s preliminary election. In fact, on four separate occasions, a white candidate hauled in more than $220,000 in a single month.

Many disparate factors contribute to the divide—including the fact that several of the white candidates had ramped up fund-raising long before the start of the race—but the simplest explanation is socioeconomic, say political scientists. White communities tend to be wealthier. That can make fund-raising easier for a candidate from the largely white neighborhood of West Roxbury than a competitor from northern Dorchester.

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