With less than a month before City Council elections, Mary-Ann Baldwin leads fundraising in the at-large race for City Council, Eugene Weeks is on top in District C and Randall Stagner holds a small lead in District A.
In the 2009 council elections, every candidate who raised the most money was the top vote getter, with the exception of one (Thomas Crowder, District D), according to campaign finance reports.
In this year’s race for the two at-large council seats, the two incumbents are the top fundraisers in the first set of campaign financial disclosures to come in for the 2011 election. Baldwin amassed $30,945, Russ Stephenson raised $20,247, and newcomer Paul Fitts brought in $10,632.
In District C, appointed councilor Eugene Weeks leads the pack in fundraising. His campaign netted more than $10,000 in this election cycle. Corey Branch has raised the second most with more than $2,000.
Weeks and Branch are trailed by Sheila Jones who raised more than $1,500 and Racquel Williams, who herself contributed more than $1,000 to her campaign, has brought in a meager $65 in outside donations.
The fifth candidate, Paul Terrell, has submitted a “Certification of Threshold.” It means that he will raise no more than $1,000 and is relinquished from the responsibility of filing financial disclosures.
In District A, Randall Stagner is inching out Gale McKoy Wilkins. He has raised more than $6,000 while Wilkins has raised $5,350. However, Stagner has personally loaned $15,000 to his campaign, giving him a significant spending advantage.
He has outspent Wilkins $9,017 to $1,623.
Of the three candidates who are running unopposed, one collected an impressive figure in the last 35-day reporting period this election season. Bonner Gaylor of District E raised $7,155 while District D’s Thomas Crowder managed just $1,350 and District B’s John Odom just $725.
