Report: Paladino gave $7.7 million to his own campaign
Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino holds a baseball bat as he concedes the election Nov. 2, 2010, in upstate Buffalo. Credit: AP
Carl Paladino, the bombastic Buffalo Republican who lost the governor's race to Andrew Cuomo, spent about $7.7 million of his own money on the campaign, well short of the $10 million he once pledged to invest in his candidacy.
Paladino listed $6.048 million of his spending as an outstanding loan to the campaign and $1.65 million as a direct contribution.
Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo's campaign had not released its postelection campaign finance spending report Monday. State campaign finance law required a report be submitted to the state Board of Elections by 5 p.m.
The Paladino campaign, which spent $9.54 million during the 2010 primary and general election seasons, paid huge sums to companies owned and controlled by the first-time political candidate, including $470,167 to his Ellicott advertising and development companies and $15,103 to the Paladino-owned Staybridge Suites hotel in the Buffalo suburb of West Seneca.
Paladino's campaign manager, Michael Caputo, was paid $492,175 for his work.
In the attorney general's race, GOP Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan spent $1 million in the campaign's closing weeks, bringing his total spending to $2.29 million. Donovan paid $500,000 to campaign manager Bradley Tusk's consulting firm. Tusk also managed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2009 re-election campaign.
State Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan), who defeated Donovan for the post, did not release his report Monday.
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who narrowly defeated Republican Harry Wilson in the year's closest statewide election, has a mere $70,255 remaining in his campaign account. DiNapoli, a former Great Neck Estates assemblyman, spent $496,358 in the campaign's waning days, to bring his total expenses to $3.06 million for the year.
DiNapoli's late-campaign contributors included Democratic heavy hitters like father-of-the-governor Basil Paterson ($1,000) and Harold Ickes ($1,000).
Wilson, a former hedge fund executive from Scarsdale, spent $6.96 million on his race, including $3.85 million he loaned the campaign.
How deportations are hitting LI industries ... Man found dead in Nassau identified ... Eying Sunrise Highway expansion ... Islip bans battery storage
How deportations are hitting LI industries ... Man found dead in Nassau identified ... Eying Sunrise Highway expansion ... Islip bans battery storage
