This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 19, 2013 - Less than a week before his next campaign report is due, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay already has outpaced every other politician in the state this month by raising more than $106,000 in large donations in less than three weeks.
Slay even outraised Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat known for his frenzied fundraising throughout 2012. (Nixon's large-donor tally so far for February is just over $41,000.)
And Slay’s chief rival, Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed, has collected only one large donation so far this month: $7,000 from the Painters union.
Meanwhile, Slay has collected six contributions since Feb. 1 of more than $5,000 apiece. The most recent ones include:
- $15,000 from electric-utility giant Ameren;
- $11,834 from Anheuser-Busch;
- $10,000 from the St. Louis Cardinals, which was donated Friday, a week after the official groundbreaking for the long-awaited Ballpark Village commercial development.
The mayor’s largest donation for the month remains $50,000 reported earlier from Missourians for Excellence in Government, which is largely bankrolled by wealthy financier Rex Sinquefield.
