Kay releases her money total... Rick out raised her, but Kay has more left over in the bank...

Rick's peeps seemed to leak his money totals that will come out later this week to Wayne Slater. Kay's peeps have followed suit (link). Excerpt follows...

Kay Bailey Hutchison leads incumbent Rick Perry in money with more than $12 million in the bank as the Republicans go into the final stretch of their high-stakes, big-money gubernatorial battle. Hutchison raised $6 million in the latest period- which means she has collected over $20 million so far in her bid to unseat Perry. For his part, we reported this morning that the Republican governor raised more than $7 million in the last six months and goes into the March 2 GOP primary $11.6 million in the bank.

Says Hutchison campaign manager Terry Sullivan: "Fundraising has been strong and consistent and we're very pleased." The contest between Perry and Hutchison to win the Republican nomination is expected to cost the candidates more than $25 million each - and millions more if there's a runoff.

The latest campaign reports will be filed Friday with the Texas Ethics Commission. Hutchison has led Perry in early fundraising, beginning with a $6 million transfer from her Senate account. And the new report suggests that while she raised $1 million less in the latest period, the GOP senator is in a stronger fundraising position with about $700,000 more than Perry in the campaign treasury as they go into the final months of the fractious primary. Look for even more political commercials on your TV in the weeks ahead.

Rick made up a lot of ground in the second half of 2009... raising a good deal more than Kay over that period... but it looks like Kay still has a slight but definitely measurable advantage in terms of cash on hand due to that large 6 million dollar transfer of funds mentioned by Wayne Slater from her old senate campaign account to her gubernatorial account early on in the campaign...

Money is money though and Kay has enough left to pay for 3 or 4 more state wide 30 second ads, or several dozen more state wide equivalent radio ads across the state, than Rick over the next several weeks. That is assuming Rick does not out raise her over that time... and given the pattern of him out raising her over the second half of 2009 that is entirely possible...

A good deal of money is always raked in in the final weeks and days of any campaign... so... who knows... basically what I take from this is that Rick and Kay are very very close in both money raised and money on hand... so neither candidate will have a major advantage over the other in terms of resources...