The former Winthrop Town Council president and current attorney is running in the Democratic Primary in the 19th Suffolk District special election to replace former House Speaker Bob DeLeo (D-Winthrop). He has received criticism from the Left because he appears to have supported former President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, does not appear to be a fan of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge) or former first lady Hillary Clinton, and has posted online about being pro-life.
But what about his political contributions? While Turco said he voted for U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and Joe Biden in the November 2020 general election, campaign finance data from the Federal Elections Commission indicates that he gave to Republican causes last year.
From the looks of it, Turco made four donations to a pair of causes: the general fund for the web site WinRed, which raises money for a myriad of Republican congressional candidates; U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) amid her tough re-election bid.
The first donation came on August 12. It went to WinRed. Then, about one month later, he donated to WinRed again on September 19. Both of those donations were for $100, totaling $200.
Fast forward 11 days and it appears that he made two donations to Collins for a combined $200. He made one through WinRed and the other went to the Collins campaign directly. Collins, a moderate Republican who supports legal abortion and never endorsed Donald Trump in either the 2016 or 2020 presidential elections, was the only U.S. senator to win an election in a state that Trump lost in 2020. She received 51 percent of the vote, beating Democrat Sara Gideon. Her opponent, Gideon, was the House Speaker in Maine. Gideon received 42.4 percent of the vote.
The Federal Election Commission donations came under the name Jeffrey Rosario. The name of Turco’s law firm at one point was the Law Office of Jeffrey Rosario Turco, according to his LinkedIn page. Additionally, the address for the donations from Jeffrey Rosario on the Federal Election Commission’s web site matched the address listed on Jeff Turco’s Statement of Organization on the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance’s web site.
