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On paper, the 5th Middlesex District race is not close.
State Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian, of Melrose, entered the race for the seat Sen. Jason Lewis is vacating after nearly 12 years with $73,448 already in the bank, and she holds $70,027 in cash on hand as of June 30 — the dominant reserve in a district where three Democrats have raised only about $92,000 combined since Dec. 1, according to Office of Campaign and Political Finance filings.
The seat covers Malden, Melrose, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield and part of Winchester.
A dominant war chest — and a transfer trap
Lipper-Garabedian’s filings demand a careful read. They show $70,000 received May 19 and $6,545 on July 7 from “CTE Kate Lipper Garabedian” — her own committee, moving money between accounts during a bank switch.
Counted as fundraising or self-funding, that $76,545 would badly overstate her campaign. Excluded, her real figures are $58,297 raised and $61,718 spent, and her June 30 cash on hand combines both accounts.
What remains is an incumbent-style operation. Lipper-Garabedian, who wrote the state law letting candidates spend campaign funds on child care, spent about $12,987 with Boyds for direct mail and $6,115 with the fundraising consultants Castle Point Partners, and drew PAC support from the New Car Dealer PAC, Massachusetts Bankers and the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association among 12 committee receipts.
Of her 382 itemized gifts, 59% were $100 or less, and Melrose led her geography at $17,634.
Before her child care law passed, Lipper-Garabedian told Winchester News, “I had to use my personal funds."”
Two late starts
Her rivals started late and raised little. Malden City Councilor at large Carey McDonald, who entered in April, banked essentially nothing before then — $0 in February and $96 in March — before pulling in $8,454 in April.
Of $26,288 itemized, 43% came from out of state, from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, where McDonald grew up, consistent with a national Unitarian Universalist network; Malden gave $9,970, and 72% of the gifts were $100 or less.
McDonald, who uses they/them pronouns, pointed to a Malden park expansion, telling Winchester News about “the kids playing in that park that I helped support.”
Ryan O’Malley, a Malden ward councilor for roughly a decade, is running the leanest campaign in the race, with $8,839 raised and $5,473 in cash. His is also the most grassroots profile on paper: 86% of his 57 itemized gifts were $100 or less, the highest small-dollar share of the three.
The complication is at the top — his only two $1,000 checks both came from donors sharing his surname, and $2,002 of his total was moved from his committee’s own savings.
O’Malley, who took no PAC money, told Winchester News, “anyone who can get involved should get involved.”
The figures here run through the June 30 bank reports, the latest of the monthly filings the candidates’ banks have submitted since Dec. 1, with itemized donor detail drawn from deposit reports filed quarterly through the spring.
The next scheduled filing — the quarterly deposit report itemizing April-through-June donors — is due July 20, according to OCPF. Because all three are on the Sept. 1 primary ballot, OCPF requires them to file twice a month through the campaign’s final weeks, and the cycle’s year-end summary is due Jan. 20, 2027.
Will Dowd is a Massachusetts journalist who covers municipal government and community life for Winchester News. He is also the founder and editor of The Marblehead Independent, a reader-funded digital newsroom.
