Who Funded the Mayoral Race?
A Look at the Most Generous Donors from the 2022 Municipal Election
In a series of stories to come, I’ll dive into the world of local political donations.
This is a sneak peak at what you can expect, one focused on the most recent municipal election in Sault Ste. Marie.
As a political observer, two things stand out from the race for Mayor in October of last year.
First, the voter turnout was absolutely dismal.
That was in spite of smart planning by City staff to stem the tidal wave of public apathy and make participation as accessible as possible.
It was a trend right across Ontario municipalities, likely a combination of voter fatigue (three elections in a little over a year) and pandemic-related fatigue.
Low voter turnout means the mandate and democratic legitimacy of election winners are relatively limited.
Matthew Shoemaker pulled in just over 44% of all votes that were cast with a decisive win.
His closest competitor, Ozzie Grandinetti, pulled in almost 25% of all votes that were cast.
That’s a huge gap.
Nonetheless, with an election turnout of just under 38%, that means that a mere 17% of eligible voters elected Mayor Shoemaker.
That’s an observation and not a criticism.
Second, it was an incredible election cycle for political donations.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons (Keith Bacongco)
In a previous story for Sault This Week, I wrote about Matthew Shoemaker smashing the mayoral fundraising record and handily reaching the allowable limit for candidates.
Although donations also flowed to candidates for Council, they mostly pale in comparison to the mayoral donations.
I went through all of the financial statements from mayoral candidates to crunch the numbers.
The only one missing is from Ozzie Grandinetti. The deadline to submit was March 31st of this year, but candidates are still able to file their financial statement by May 1st with a penalty. What follows is based on all campaign donations of $100 or more.
Here are the mayoral campaign donations by the numbers:
29 individuals donated the maximum allowable amount of $1,200
1 individual (John Martella) donated the maximum allowable amount to two different candidates (Donna Hilsinger and Matthew Shoemaker)
Of the 29 individuals that donated the maximum allowable amount, 23 of them favoured Matthew Shoemaker (almost 80%)
Donna Hilsinger raised $17,650 in donations
Tobin Kern raised $2,450 in donations
Robert Peace raised $1,600 in donations
Matthew Shoemaker raised ~$54,800.00 in donations
The four mayoral candidates together raised ~$76,554.00
Of that total, here’s how much each candidate pulled in as a rounded percentage:
Hilsinger 23%
Kern 3%
Peace 2%
Shoemaker 72%
And here’s the full list of individuals who donated the maximum allowable amount ($1,200) and their candidate of choice:
Gordan Acton (Shoemaker)
Sam Biasucci (Shoemaker)
Anna Biasucci (Shoemaker)
Joey Biasucci (Shoemaker)
Peter Bortolussi (Shoemaker)
James Caicco (Shoemaker)
J Paul R Cassan (Shoemaker)
Chris Cooper (Hilsinger)
Laura Disano (Shoemaker)
Peter Feifel (Shoemaker)
Daniel Fremlin (Shoemaker)
Carlo Gervasi (Shoemaker)
Albert Giommi (Shoemaker)
Joe Greco (Shoemaker)
Emily Hillstrom (Hilsinger)
Mary Hilsinger (Hilsinger)
John Martella (Hilsinger)
John Martella (Shoemaker)
Clark McDaniel (Hilsinger)
Michael McNally (Shoemaker)
Orlando Rosa (Shoemaker)
Tony Porco (Shoemaker)
Steven Shoemaker (Shoemaker)
Frank Shunock (Shoemaker)
William Stone (Hilsinger)
Dennis Tattasciore (Shoemaker)
Steven Toppan (Shoemaker)
Joe Wright (Shoemaker)
Stay tuned for in-depth stories focused on local campaign donations, including some that connect the dots between political generosity and the awarding of public contracts and funding from various levels of government.