Report: Record Spending In Boston Mayoral Race

The race to succeed Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was an expensive one.

The Boston Globe reports that outside groups spent $3.8 million during the campaign, far more than was spent any previous municipal election in Massachusetts.

Mayor-elect Martin Walsh, a former labor union leader, was the beneficiary of nearly $2.5 million in independent expenditures from political action committees affiliated with labor. Education-related groups fed about half that amount into the campaign of runner-up John Connolly.

The Walsh and Connolly campaigns, meanwhile, spent a combined $5.6 million, breaking the previous record of $4 million for a Boston mayoral campaign spent in 2009.

Walsh, who will be sworn-in to office on Jan. 6, declined a request from Connolly early in the campaign to refuse outside money.