Wendy Greuel Edges Eric Garcetti In Fundraising, Has More Cash In Campaign's Final Two Weeks

Controller Wendy Greuel raised more money over the last month than Councilman Eric Garcetti, her top rival in the race for L.A. mayor, and has more cash in the bank with less than two weeks to go before the March 5 primary.

As of last Saturday, Garcetti had $1.5 million in the bank. Greuel had $1.67 million. The candidates must spend all of their cash by March 5, because money raised during the primary cannot be carried over to the May 21 general election.

A source familiar with ad spending estimated that Greuel and her allies were outspending Garcetti on broadcast TV this week by roughly $750,000 to $600,000. However, the independent committees supporting Greuel must pay a higher rate for TV time than the candidates themselves, which neutralizes much, if not all, of her advantage in terms of actual TV time.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, meanwhile, raised $67,682 over the fundraising period, and spent $809,000, leaving her with $483,000 in the bank.

One other note for the truly numbers-obsessed: The Greuel campaign said that its filing posted on the L.A. City Ethics Commission website was incorrect in two respects. The report lists a much higher figure for the campaign's expenditures over the period — $2.72 million — and a much lower figure for cash in the bank — $726,000. The campaign said the error was the result of double-counting subvendor payments for TV ad time as separate payments.

Fundraising figures were not immediately available for the two other contenders — Kevin James and Emanuel Pleitez — nor for the independent committees involved in the campaign.

Update, Friday morning: Looks like Better Way L.A., the independent committee backing Kevin James, is running out of gas. The committee reported raising just $9,700 over the last month. That puts its total for the campaign at $709,700 — just a bit shy of the $4 million the committee was hoping to raise last fall.

Kevin James actually outpaced the independent committee for the period, raising $51,973. James has $25,000 in the bank. The independent committee has about $64,000 — which means that James should be looking to attract a lot of free media attention over the last 10 days of the campaign.

Pleitez reported raising $19,707, and has $146,000 in the bank.