Elizabeth Martin and David Miller don’t think of themselves as special interest donors. But according to Charlotte’s two mayoral candidates, they are.
The subject flared during Wednesday night’s televised debate between Democrat Anthony Foxx and Republican John Lassiter, putting contributions such as Martin’s and Miller’s in the spotlight in the campaign’s waning days.
Foxx accused Lassiter of being beholden to developers. Lassiter attacked him for taking out-of-state money. It was the latest effort by both men to showcase differences in a race that once seemed to offer few.
It also shed light on who’s bankrolling Charlotte’s first million-dollar mayor’s race.
An Observer analysis shows Lassiter has gotten at least $104,000 – 20 percent of the money he raised – from individuals, such as Miller, who listed jobs in the real estate, building and development industries. Foxx got $28,000, or 5 percent of his money, from such donors.
Foxx got more than $54,000 – or one in every $10 – from people like Martin, who live outside North Carolina. Lassiter got $11,000 from out of state, about 2percent of his money.
In a new fundraising appeal Wednesday, Lassiter said Foxx “has resorted to accepting special interest money from groups and individuals that have no affiliation with the Charlotte community.
“Their agenda is set on priorities that are not aligned with the priorities of the citizens of Charlotte,” he said Thursday. “We have focused our fundraising on folks who live and work in this community.”
But Foxx said, “All this conversation about the out-of-state money is to obfuscate the massive contributions by developers to (Lassiter’s) campaign.”
