Whitman
SACRAMENTO (Legal Newsline) -- Former eBay CEO, billionaire and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has contributed an additional $13 million of her own money in her bid to become the state's next governor.
The donation was filed Friday with the California secretary of state's office. It brings the GOP nominee's personal stake to $104 million, according to the Los Angles Times.
Whitman, according to recent poll results, is in a dead heat with Democratic nominee and California Attorney General Jerry Brown -- this, despite the fact she has outspent Brown since she won the primary in June.
Brown has said his "shoestring campaign" is a necessity during the summer, and he is marshaling his resources for the fall.
But his campaign has been the beneficiary of independent expenditures from unions, which the Whitman campaign told the Times is what prompted her to write another large check.
"Meg is investing the necessary resources to fight the $13 million in attacks Jerry Brown, Inc., has launched to defend the status quo in Sacramento," spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said over the weekend.
Brown's campaign described the move as an act of desperation by a candidate whose record spending has failed to produce results in the polls,
They even went as far as mocking Whitman for filing the notice on a lazy summer Friday -- when it would be unlikely to receive much attention.
"Meg Whitman continues to pour unprecedented millions into a campaign of unprecedented dishonesty," Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford told the Times.
"Her ads have been proven false, her trickle-down tax breaks for the super-rich are a proven failure and the late-night disclosure is all about keeping voters in the dark."
According to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey, Brown is slightly ahead in the race for governor.
Earlier this month, a telephone survey of likely voters in the state found Brown with 43 percent support and Whitman with 41 percent of the vote. Six percent prefer another candidate and 10 percent remain undecided.
Both candidates, according to the poll results, have seen a drop in support over the past month. In July, Whitman was at 47 percent and Brown at 46.
The two candidates have been neck-and-neck since September 2009. Brown bounced ahead, briefly, right after the state Democratic Convention in April. But the race tightened again in June after Whitman's GOP primary win.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by e-mail at jessica@legalnewsline.com.