It’s one of 15 donations she has made in a federal election during her tenure at Harvard, which began in 2015.
Allen, a left-of-center commentator on cable television and sometime contributing columnist with The Washington Post, is exploring a run for governor.
She apparently hedged her bets. Two months after donating to Sanders,, she gave $250 to former first lady Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. (Clinton went on to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, losing to Donald Trump in the general election.)
Allen gave $20 to the Democratic candidate fund-raising web site ActBlue and $200 to Adem Bunkeddeko, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran in New York state’s Ninth District Democratic primary in New York.
Allen ramped up her contributions in 2020, making 11. She once again offered support for Bunkeddeko, who unsuccessfully ran in the primary. She donated a combined $2,500 to help elect Bunkedekko among four donations.
Bunkedekko supports Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), banning what he calls “semi-automatic assault rifles,” repealing voter ID laws, and repealing the Hyde Amendment, according to his campaign web site. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal tax dollars from paying for elective abortions.
The other candidate she donated to multiple times was Brookline resident and former Planned Parenthood employee Jesse Mermell, who ran in the Democratic primary in the Fourth Congressional district in 2020. Mermell was the runner-up to U.S. Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-Newton). Allen gave Mermell $2,000 spread out between three donations.
Mermell’s platform called for Medicare-for-all, free public college, some form of student loan debt forgiveness, and increased federal funding for Massachusetts transit programs. Additionally, Mermell supported the pro-abortion ROE Act at the state level last year and said that her team made 4,000 calls in one week advocating for its passage.
The version of it that passed eliminated parental and judicial consent for 16-year-old and 17-year-old girls seeking an abortion, made abortion legal past 24 weeks in the state in cases where “an abortion is warranted because of a lethal fetal anomaly incompatible with sustained life outside the uterus,” and eliminated language from Massachusetts law that requires doctors to try to save the life of a baby born alive following an attempted abortion.
Also in 2020, Allen gave $175 to ActBlue spaced out among four donations: three for $50 and another for $25.
Allen could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Thus far, former state Senator Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield) is the first major candidate to announce a run for the Democratic nomination for governor. Downing recently predicted the field will be crowded.
The state’s general election is set for November 2022.
