Republican Heidi Wheaton raised $138,501 in donations for her bid to be a Lancaster County commissioner, far outpacing the other three GOP contenders in the primary campaign.

According to campaign-finance reports that were due Friday to the county Board of Elections, Wheaton pumped $29,200 of her own money into the campaign and has $73,921 left in her war chest for the final 11 days before the election.

Despite the high amount of spending by Wheaton — about $64,000, more than double what any other candidate has spent — she has painted her campaign as one about conservative fiscal management.

She said she sees campaign spending and government spending as two different issues. "I'm not spending taxpayer dollars, quite frankly," Wheaton said about the campaign.

"I'm very conservative with taxpayer dollars, and I look for value for the dollars that are spent."

Wheaton, an East Hempfield Township supervisor; former Lancaster city Mayor Charlie Smithgall; former county Youth Intervention Center director Scott Martin; and County Controller Dennis Stuckey are running in the Republican primary.

GOP voters on May 15 will nominate two of them to face a pair of Democrats and any third-party or independent candidates in the November general election. All three county commissioner posts are up for grabs.

Smithgall raised $43,740 and spent $33,778. The combined ticket of Stuckey-Martin — the team endorsed by the Lancaster County Republican Party — pulled in $107,000 and has about $76,000 left to spend.

Smithgall's biggest donor was Beverly Steinman, a boardmember of Lancaster Newspapers Inc., who gave Smithgall $10,000, or about a quarter of his war chest. The former mayor loaned his campaign another $10,000 of his own money.

"I did that to get the message out that I needed to get out," Smithgall said Friday. "I did that because I believe in myself."

Although Democrats don't have a primary contest, their two presumed nominees — incumbent Commissioner Molly Henderson and Lancaster city Controller Craig Lehman — raised about $26,700 between them.

Henderson has spent $15,400 of that, mostly on political consultants, and she loaned her campaign $4,000 of her personal cash. Lehman's campaign spent $4,740, a majority of it on campaign signs.

They collectively have about $5,700 left in their war chests.

Wheaton, however, clearly dominated the fundraising part of this year's campaign.

She gave her campaign about $30,000 of her own money, more than any other candidate but far less than the $200,000 she spent during her failed bid for state Senate last year.

She lost in the GOP primary to Mike Brubaker, who went on to win the seat in the general election.

Wheaton said this year her name recognition was significantly better than when she entered the Senate race in 2006, so she didn't need to spend as much money promoting her identity as a conservative candidate.

She also was elected last fall to the Government Study Commission, a group examining Lancaster County government and possible changes to its structure.

Among Wheaton's biggest donors are businessman Ron Hoover, who gave Wheaton a total of $45,000 in money and in-kind contributions; farmer Patrick Stillman, who donated $29,500 in cash and in-kind contributions; Wheaton campaign chairman Tom Shea, who gave $23,000; philanthropist David Abel, who donated $10,000; Susan Ali, whose occupation was not listed on the campaign-finance report, gave $15,000; and developer Richard Steudler, who donated $10,000.

From those six contributors, Wheaton received a total of $132,500.

"I'm a very strong conservative, and I've taken on some big issues in our township," Wheaton said when asked about her ability to raise money. "People know what I stand for and know I will stand up for the right thing."

Wheaton received contributions from 33 sources; Smithgall accepted donations from 62 donors.

Stuckey and Martin said earlier this week that 300 donors gave money to their collective campaigns.

"Clearly we have support, and we're going to ride that momentum to election day," Martin said Friday.

Smithgall, though, downplayed the significance of money in the campaign.

"I hope (voters) will see through all of this and pick the best candidates," he said.

E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com