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Read the news of the day in less than 10 minutes — not that we’re counting.
Mayoral candidates — as well as candidates for other city races — had to file their first campaign finance reports Monday, showing how much money they have in their coffers as of December 31, 2014. In five charts, Billy Penn explains how money is so far affecting this year’s race.
As of now, Tony Williams is leading the pack. He had over $400,000 in his running account as of Dec. 31, 2014, and nobody else had over $200,000. Lynne Abraham, however, reported adding more than $200,000 in January, bringing her overall total to $424,677. But for these charts we’re going with everyone’s totals as of Dec. 31 so as to make proper comparisons.
But real money isn’t everything, right? Certainly, Milton Street would agree with that sentiment. Though he hasn’t raised any actual funds, he said his name recognition is worth $800K. Look how that stacks up in the race.
Seriously, don’t you dare sleep on Street. He’s pacing the field, big time. His $800,000 worth of name recognition is more than the other five candidates have raised combined.
There’s been a lot of talk about how this year’s mayoral race won’t be full of big spenders (which is probably a good thing considering candidates in 2007 spent around $24 million for the Democratic primary). So far, the numbers bear out that belief. As you can see, these candidates’ election accounts are nowhere near as full as the top five 2007 mayoral candidates’ accounts were at the same point in the race back then.
