Politics

Greuel inches closer to Garcetti in fundraising race

City Controller Wendy Greuel is closing the fundraising gap against City Councilman Eric Garcetti in the L.A. mayor's race.
Wendy Greuel Campaign/Eric Garcetti campaign

Sharon McNary | January 25, 2013

As the March 5 city election gets closer, candidates are required to file campaign finance reports more frequently. In reports submitted Thursday — covering just the first 19 days in January — City Controller Wendy Greuel collected more than fellow frontrunner Councilman Eric Garcetti.

Greuel pulled in $127,500 and Garcetti $80,500 during the period. They've been fundraising since 2011 and remain quite close: Garcetti has pulled in $3.68 million, Gruel $3.6 million.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry has collected less than half that amount. She raised just over $16,000 in early January and is close to passing the $1.49 million mark.

Greuel and Garcetti get to collect the maximum amount of public matching campaign funds of $667,000 each for the primary. Perry gets $568,000 in matching funds. Citywide, taxpayers are putting $2.4 million into matching funds in the mayor's race.

Candidates for mayor, who will debate on KPCC next month, cast a wide geographic net for contributions. About 90 percent of Garcetti and Greuel's campaign funds were raised from donors within California; Perry, about 95 percent.

Former radio talk show host Kevin James, the lone Republican in the non-partisan mayoral race, collected nearly $13,000 from Jan. 1-19. He's collected $332,000 since entering the race, enough to receive public matching funds of nearly $203,000. About 81 percent of James' funds were rasied from individuals and companies in California.

An independent expenditure committee, Better Way L.A., reported spending about $63,000 in support of James' campaign, but so far has not run any ads. That's a far cry from the $2 million that campaign advisor Fred "Hollywood" Davis said he planned to raise independently to bolster the James campaign.

Mayoral candidate Emanuel Pleitez, who is running a grass-roots campaign, raised $8,600 in the most recent reporting cycle, including $1,889 in cash contributions of $100 or less that don't get reported by donor name.

The tech exec has raised $221,500 so far, about 59 percent from Californians. Pleitez gets $299,000 in public matching campaign funds. He's put $24,500 of his own money into the race, the most of any still-active candidate. (Mayoral candidate dropout Austin Beutner put $1.1 million into his campaign.)