More candidates are joining the 2021 race to be on the New Bedford City Council. The candidates are also raising money – well, most of the candidates are raising money.
It comes as no surprise that most of the candidates are looking to get elected to an at-large seat given the upcoming retirement of Deb Coelho from the council. An open seat among the five at-large seats is a rare occurrence. An open seat is even rarer than an incumbent at-large councilor losing re-election.
The three most active non-incumbents so far are Matthew Keefer, Jason Mello, and Lisa White. They have been doing outreach to the public and they have been raising campaign funds, which you can see in the list at the bottom of this article.
Money is the mother s milk of politics is an old phrase that is still true today. In fact, money might be more important in the age of COVID-19.
The pandemic has put an end to many forms of traditional campaigning. Most people wouldn t appreciate a candidate knocking on their door these days. Large events are not currently allowed. Even a small gathering of a campaign s key volunteers would be a risky endeavor. Candidates are going to have to buy the time to communicate with the voters this cycle.
Here are the amounts in some of the political campaign accounts of officials elected in the city of New Bedford:
New Bedford's Richard Tyson Moultrie ran for mayor in 2019 and he lost. He is now going to run for the New Bedford City Council according to OCPF documents.