[UPDATE Friday 9:35am CT: Ars received a response from the Murray campaign clarifying his position on the city's gigabit project and the Comcast donations, and we have posted it at the bottom of this story. When Ars asked the Murray campaign if the candidate planned on changing the gigabit plan in any way, the answer was a flat: "No."]

If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times: broadband in the United States is slow and expensive relative to much of the rest of the world.

Sure, there are a few bright spots of gigabit nationwide, including Seattle, which announced its service nearly a year ago. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn pushed for Gigabit Seattle, a partnership between Gigabit Squared and the University of Washington. Its goal has been to bring 1Gbps connections to the Emerald City, using fiber that was originally planned for a municipal network.

But now, the Washington Post reports that Comcast has been donating money to McGinn’s rival, state Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle). The mayoral election is set for Tuesday, November 5.

Murray, the Post adds, "has committed to honoring the city's existing contracts for a 14-neighborhood pilot project but has shown limited enthusiasm about McGinn's plans to expand the network in the future."

The Broadband Communications of Washington Political Action Committee (BCAW PAC), which gets nearly all of its money from Comcast, donated $5,000 (its single largest donation) to the group “People for Ed Murray” not even a month after Gigabit Squared’s pricing was announced. And who is the president-elect of BCAW PAC? That would be none other than Janet Turpen, the vice president of government affairs for Comcast in Seattle. Turpen herself donated $500 to Murray earlier this month.

Gigabit Squared's 1Gbps service will be priced at $80 per month, while Comcast's Seattle service tops out at 105Mbps (roughly one-tenth the speed), for $115 per month.

Comcast previously gave Murray $700 just one day after Seattle’s gigabit project was announced in December 2012. Comcast told Ars that while this new transfer was reflected on December 14, 2012, it was actually donated in May 2012 as part of Murray's state senate campaign.

As the Post also reported:

And what is Comcast’s response to all of this? Comcast told Ars that these donations were not related to the mayoral campaign but in fact were donations for Murray’s earlier state senate campaign.

“Locally in Washington State, where Comcast has a significant presence of customers and employees, we have supported the State Senate campaigns of Ed Murray for several years including in May 2012,” Sena Fitzmaurice, a Comcast spokesperson, told Ars by e-mail. “Several months after our last contribution, Senator Murray decided not to run for Senate and instead to run for Mayor of Seattle, and converted our contribution to his mayoral campaign. The contribution was not related in any way to any actions of the current mayor and was instead related to our previous support.”

And with respect to the CASE PAC donations?

“Comcast in no way controls or directs the contributions of the CASE PAC," she added. "That PAC gives to a wide variety of candidates, and which candidates they support is in no way determined by us. Also of note is that our giving patterns to the PACs are not related to any particular election, in the case of the Washington Broadband PAC for example, our donation amount is determined by a formula based on subscriber counts in the state."

The Ed Murray for Mayor campaign did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

UPDATE: On Friday morning, Ars received the following e-mail from Sandeep Kaushik, who describes himself as a "consultant" to the Murray for Mayor campaign. We have reprinted it in full here: