Mayor Bloomberg has spent a whopping $2.9 million of his own money so far on his bid for a third term at City Hall – a more modest spending spree than his last record-shattering campaign, according to campaign filings released today.
The billionaire Republican-turned-independent doled out far less in the first three months of this year compared to the $5 million he spent by this point on his successful 2005 race.
That year, he went on to spend a staggering $85 million to win a second term.
The mayor – who Forbes magazine ranked this week as the 17th richest man on the planet with an estimated wealth of $16.5 billion – does not take public matching funds and can freely spend as long as he publicly discloses his campaign spending.
A term-limits law had originally prohibited Bloomberg from seeking another term, but the City Council changed the statute last year so he could run again.
Bloomberg has embarked on a third campaign amid a drastically different economic climate and has argued that New Yorkers need his fiscal know-how to get the city out of this economic slump.
The filing, which covers the period from Jan. 12 to this past Monday, shows that his biggest costs thus far are administrative costs.
Bloomberg has spent more than $1 million to establish a Midtown headquarters and the staff who will work there.
His new campaign chairman, Bradley Tusk, is being paid more than $300,000.
Bloomberg is also starting early on polling and developing a database of voter information – doling out $500,000 to do so.
He has spent $400,000 on advertising and media consulting, in addition to $128,000 on Internet ads and his own re-election Web site.