City candidates’ financial filings are in for the latest fundraising period

Monday was the deadline to file campaign finance reports for members of City Council and other candidates in the November election. No one was surprised last week when the Austin Monitor reported that Mayor Kirk Watson had raised more than $710,000 between mid-April and June 30, probably more than his opponents are likely to raise for the race.

Those opponents include former Council Member Kathie Tovo and two community activists, Doug Greco and Carmen Llanes Pulido. Tovo reported raising about $57,000 and spending more than $39,000 over the reporting period. According to that report, she has about $44,000 left in the campaign fund. She has loaned her campaign more than $181,000 over the years.

Greco reported raising more than $88,000 and spending less than $30,000 in the reporting period. That leaves more than $52,000 in the bank for Greco. He said he did not loan his campaign any money.

Llanes Pulido reported raising $71,000 in contributions and loaning her campaign $20,000. That makes up the $91,000 she estimated her campaign had raised when speaking with the Monitor last week. So far, the campaign has spent nearly $77,000, which leaves less than $9,000 in the bank.

In District 4, Council Member Chito Vela has an obvious advantage over his rivals, having won the January 2022 race to fill the vacancy left by outgoing Council Member Greg Casar, now a U.S. Congress member. Vela reported raising nearly $24,000 during the past six months and spending less than $8,000. Added to his fundraising kitty from previous months, he now has about $79,000 in the bank. His campaign still owes him more than $10,000 from the prior race.

Monica Guzmán and Jade Lovera were among the candidates that Vela bested in 2022. Both have signed up to run against him once more, but their campaign finance reports were not on the city’s website last night.

The other District 4 candidate who did file a report on time was Louis Herrin III. He reported raising $0 and spending $0 during the past six months. That leaves him with less than $3,149 in the bank.

In District 7, the most crowded of those races headed for the ballot in November, attorney Mike Siegel reported raising more than $44,000 during the past six months and spending $26,000 so far this year. His overall fundraising total is $101,523. Siegel reported that he had $66,063 in cash on hand at the end of the fundraising period on June 30.

Todd Shaw, an environmental engineer who serves on the city’s Planning Commission and is running for the District 7 seat, reported raising more than $15,000 and spending less than $3,000 during the past six months. That leaves him with a little less than $13,000 in the bank.

According to his website, District 7 candidate Adam C. Powell is a native Austinite who became a union organizer and is involved with a variety of neighborhood and community organizations. He has raised more than $32,000 and spent more than $25,000. That leaves his campaign with about $16,000 as of June 30.

Two other District 7 candidates are Edwin Bautista and Pierre Nguyen. Neither of their June 30 campaign finance reports appeared on the city’s website as of 5 p.m. Monday. Nguyen, a member of the city’s Public Safety Commission, reported in January that he had raised $1,750 and spent most of it. Bautista reported raising $240 and spending all but $50 of that.

The newest candidate in this race is Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe. He filed in July and so was not required to file the June report.

Photo by Jericho [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Posted In: Elections, District 4, District 7