Do These Signs Point To A New Mayor In Amarillo?

Well, we're less than a month away from the election here in Amarillo, and it's shaping up to be an interesting race for mayor.

We've all seen the amount of ads on TV, the billboards around town, and even one candidate being talked about a bit more than the others thanks to a whoopsie in one of his ads.

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However, if you look at what's going on in the race, it may just be that candidate that has the most steam in the race for the office...depending on what you're looking at.

Who Are The Candidates For Mayor

In case you aren't quite paying attention, and that's ok if you aren't, the four candidates for mayor of Amarillo are incumbent Cole Stanley, Jason Herrick, Misty Collier, and Luke Johnson.

Stanley has been in office for the last couple of years, and the other three candidates are running for the first time, so it's a completely different view with the candidates this time around. Claudette Smith bowed out of the mayoral race this year after running the previous couple of elections.

Who Has The Edge In Winning

Typically, the person in office will have the best shot at winning the race, simply because they've been there and people have been able to see what they can do. So, one would think that would give Mayor Stanley the edge right out of the gate.

There is one candidate though that seems to be giving him a run for his money, literally, as this candidate has raised more than four times the money that Mayor Stanley has for his campaign.

That candidate would be Jason Herrick.

How Much Has Mayor Stanley Raised

As of this writing, we haven't seen the filings for Collier or Johnson, but Mayor Stanley and Herrick have both submitted their campaign finance reports, which shows how much money they've received and how much has gone out and on what.

Starting with Mayor Stanley, he reported donations and earnings to the campaign of $73,550, which doesn't seem too bad and a fair amount of support behind him. There were some interesting takeaways, though.

Out of that $73,550, a whopping $50,000 of that came from one donor. That donor is one of his biggest supports in Amarillo business titan Alex Fairly. More than 2/3 of his campaign contributions have come from one person.

Add in a $10,000 from Trent Morgan and you're talking about 81.5% of his contributions coming from just two people. Sure, the money is nice, but maybe a little concerning to his camp that there isn't an influx of individuals donating.

Where Does Jason Herrick Stand With Donations

This is what has been impressive. Herrick has had just shy of $318,000 donated to his campaign, more than four times what Mayor Stanley has received. That would be part of the reason you see more ads for Herrick around town than Mayor Stanley.

Herrick has achieved that number in large part to the amount of donors. His largest donation was $20,000 from one person, along with a $15,000 donation. There were several $10,000 donations made to the campaign as well.

The majority of his donations though are in the $100-1,000 range which has a tendency to indicate that these aren't businesspeople that are doing a large amount of donating, but citizens of Amarillo.

Do Donations Typically Shape The Race

I wouldn't say that the donation dollar amount is the tell-all when it comes to the race, but it definitely has a significance. One thing it shows is the candidate people are willing to help along the way, another it shows is the belief in what they're pushing.

The other way this will impact the race is who has the larger amount of money towards the closing days and weeks of the race as it gives that candidate more ability to advertise and push their name and face out there.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes from here, as the donations could always swing as we get closer, and we could see someone else pick up steam, but right now, I'd say there seems to be a favorite candidate amongst Amarillo residents.