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Jo Clifton is the Politics Editor for the Austin Monitor.
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Counting cash in county attorney and DA races
Monday, February 10, 2020 by Jo Clifton
With four candidates competing in the March 3 Democratic primary for Travis County attorney and none of those candidates being an incumbent, it seems reasonably likely that there will be a runoff. Three of those candidates, Laurie Eiserloh, Delia Garza and Mike Denton, were able to report that they had considerable nest eggs when they filed their most recent campaign finance reports last week. Denton, the former judge, and Garza, the Council member, each reported that they still had about $70,000 in the campaign kitty. Assistant County Attorney Laurie Eiserloh’s campaign reported she had nearly $112,000 in the bank, raising about $22,000 of that over the first three weeks of January. Denton reported raising more than $27,000 and Garza reported raising more than $20,000 over the same time period. The fourth candidate, Dominic Selvera, reported raising less than $7,000 and did not fill in the line on the campaign finance report to indicate total contributions maintained.
In other news on this race, Amy Smith, former Austin Chronicle reporter and former aide to Council Member Leslie Pool, has joined Eiserloh’s campaign as manager. At Friday’s meeting of Austin Environmental Democrats, which Smith attended with Pool, the group endorsed Eiserloh and a number of other candidates. The environmental Dems offered no endorsement in the Travis County district attorney’s race, which has become pretty heated. DA Margaret Moore reported bringing in about $14,000 in the first three weeks of January and her campaign said she had more than $76,000 on Jan. 23. Opponent José Garza reported bringing in nearly $20,000 and his campaign said it had more than $110,000 in contributions maintained. The third candidate in the race is Erin Martinson, who reported collecting less than $5,000, spending more than $9,000 and maintaining more than $55,000 in her campaign account.
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