Former State Senator Daniel Biss has 46 times as much money on hand for his Evanston mayoral campaign as the other two candidates in the race combined.
Campaign finance reports due last Friday at the State Board of Elections show Biss has $119,324 on hand after spending $6,036 on his campaign so far.
By contrast Lori Keenan has $1,984 on hand after spending $1,041. And Sebastian Nalls has $680 on hand after spending $2,515.
Candidates for all other municipal races — the nine aldermanic seats and city clerk — have a total of less than $42,000 on hand, roughly a third of the funding currently available in the mayoral contest.
Several aldermanic candidates have either not formed a campaign committee or are reporting no contributions so far.
The biggest available war chest in the aldermanic contests is the $10,375 held by Alderman Tom Suffredin, 6th Ward, nearly all of which has come out of his own pocket, in a mix of contributions and loans.
Other relatively large totals of funds on hand in aldermanic rates include:
- $4,605 held by Jonathan Nieuwsma who hopes to unseat incumbent 4th Ward Alderman Don Wilson,
- $4,066 held by Bobby Burns, who’s running for the open 5th Ward seat being vacated by Robin Rue Simmons, and
- $3,691 held by Clare Kelly, who hopes to unseat incumbent 1st Ward Alderman Judy Fiske.
Information on how much each candidate has spent so far can be found by running your mouse over the chart in the body of the story.
Biss has reported contributions from well over 100 named individuals as well as over $19,000 in smaller donations that weren’t itemized.
Most other candidates have reported only a handful of itemized contributions.