As he said when he entered the race last week, T-Mobile exec Joe Mallahan is serious about being on par with the Mayor's fundraising. 

Campaign records show he has $218,000—$200,100 of his own money. Here's the list of his contributors. 

I have a call into the mayor's campaign, which has about $202,000 on hand according to their latest filing, to get their response to this suddenly viable challenger. 

Mallahan's money isn't exactly apples to apples with Nickels' numbers because Nickels will certainly have more  money when he files his April reports in the next few days. (Reports are due on May 10.)  Nickels total money raised is about $300,000.  

UPDATE: The mayor's campaign team issued this statement in response to the news: 

"The voters of Seattle are going to see through what is an obvious attempt by a wealthy individual with little experience in public service to buy their way into elected office. In contrast to our opponent putting hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money into his campaign, we have raised our campaign funds from over 1,000 donors across the city of Seattle."

I called Mallahan's campaign, and they promise to respond shortly, although they quickly pointed out that the $18,000 they've raised from individuals is already more than any of the other challengers have raised. It's also likely to be close to what Team Nickels has raised this past month. 

 UPDATE 2: I got a lengthy response from Mallahan's campaign addressing Team Nickels' rap that Mallahan is, essentially, a dilettante. 

Here it is in full: 

“Joe isn’t a mega-millionaire.  He lives in Wallingford and drives a used Prius.  So his personal donation to the campaign stings him and his family.  But it pales in comparison to the sting thousands of families, seniors, young professionals and small businesses across our city have felt under the eight years of failed leadership from the current mayor.  We idle in traffic longer, small businesses are more burdened and the city itself is becoming less affordable to stay and establish roots.  Clearly, it’s time for a change.  So if you think the kind of experience the current mayor brings to the table – a politician for life – has served the city well, then you should support his re-election.  If you think it’s time to change course and a progressive businessman with relevant private sector experience can pull the mayor out from behind his enormous campaign warchest, then you should join us.”