Pocket change
Philly man sprinkles small donations on N.Y. progressives
Progressive candidates in New York have a friend in the city of Philadelphia.
Seventy-six-year-old John Comella, a retired software engineer living on a fixed income in Philadelphia, has sprinkled dozens of smalldollar donations of between $1 and $5 to several Democratic candidates in New York in recent months, including Cynthia Nixon’s campaign for governor, Mayor de Blasio’s 2017 reelection campaign and Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney’s campaign for attorney general, according to state election records .
Federal election records show Comella also made repeated donations to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s underdog – and successful – campaign against Queens Rep. Joe Crowley and other House candidates across the country.
“I am contributing to anybody that I think is a progressive,” Comella told The Daily News. “I think is extremely important that we take the Republican’s hold on our government away.”
The Cuomo campaign, which has been trying to up its number of small donors, raised eyebrows this past week when campaign filings showed one donor, Christopher Kim, made 67 individual contributions of $1 each — and had the same Long Island City, Queens, address as Cuomo campaign staffer Julia Yang.
Comella has no apparent links to the candidates he’s been giving to. He said he stepped up his donations to progressive candidates after Donald Trump was elected to the presidency and sticks to mostly small-dollar donations because that is all he can afford on his Social Security fueled income.
“I think Donald Trump is a bad president,” he said.
Campaign records made public this month show that Comella made 32 donations totaling $45 to Nixon’s campaign and 18 donations worth $20 to Maloney’s campaign for attorney general.
“I don’t know a lot about (Nixon) but I like what I do know about her,” he said.
Nixon, who has touted her campaign’s ability to attract small-dollar donors as a major strength -- thanked Comella for his support.
“I’m truly, truly touched by his support,” Nixon said in a statement to the Daily News. “I know how financially difficult it is for so many of our donors to part with even a dollar, and it is really humbling to have them place that trust and faith in me.”
Maloney said Comella’s actions are a sign of the times.
“Americans like John are sick and tired of seeing Trump run roughshod over our progressive values,” Maloney said in an email to the Daily News. “It’s an honor to have his support and the support of hundreds of other everyday Americans who are disgusted by what’s happening in our country right now and want change.”
Comella admitted that he makes decisions about who to donate based largely on their email solicitations. He also works through the group ActBlue, a nonprofit organization that helps Democratic candidates raise money.
At one point, Comella said, he was donating a “couple of thousand dollars” a month to candidates but has since scaled back.
“I started running low on cash,” he said.