Candidates for Board of Supervisors court voters while spending outside money.

The candidates running for the Monterey County Board of Supervisors all speak about representing their constituents, but to a large extent, the money they are raising to campaign – some $750,000 so far – comes from outside their districts.

The majority of the fundraising has been devoted to the race for District 4, which encompasses Seaside, Marina, Del Reys Oaks and South Salinas. The current supervisor, Jane Parker, is retiring after three terms. The leading candidates to replace her, in terms of campaign finance, are Wendy Root Askew, an aide to Parker and a trustee of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, and Steve McShane, a member of Salinas City Council.

Askew has raised $180,000, according to the most recent campaign disclosure forms. Much of Askew’s funding comes from individual donations – she has about 330 unique contributors, not including small donations – with some left-leaning groups and unions in the mix. Her top contributors are Konny Murray of Carmel Valley who has given about $11,000, Brigitte Wasserman of Carmel with $10,000, and Century Communities, a Colorado-based developer. Of the locals supporting Askew, the leading contributor is Parker, who gave $5,000, plus another $4,500 through her campaign committee.

Meanwhile, McShane has raised nearly twice as much, $336,000 so far, but it comes from fewer donors – about 280, not including small, unreportable donations. His base of financial support is agriculture and other business interests. The top donor to McShane is the Monterey County Business PAC, with $25,000. (The primary donor to that PAC is Chevron, the oil and gas company.)

Two others are running for the District 4 supervisor seat: Wini Chambliss, a former Monterey Peninsula Unified School District board member who is retired, and Alex Miller, a neighborhood activist in Seaside. But with a combined total of $16,000 raised, their campaign funds and presence of mailers and signs are minuscule in comparison.

For Chambliss, the vast financial gap is not a deterrent. It’s the reason she’s running. “Entering this race a year behind the two frontrunners, who had already amassed unimaginable war chests, would have been ridiculous,” she writes by email. “But my running has purpose: to expose the ‘invisible hand’ in operation in this election, and politics in general.”

Chambliss is pursuing campaign finance reform that would “make running for office accessible to all. It is imperative to remember that these are positions of service to the general population, not just special interest groups.”

The top two vote-getters in the March 3 primary will advance to the November election, unless one candidate earns more than 50 percent of the vote and wins outright.

Technically, the races for Districts 1 and 5 are also open. But Supervisors Luis Alejo and Mary Adams are running for re-election unopposed. Both raised more than $100,000 last year, perhaps fending off prospective challenges. And for when and if a challenger comes, Alejo has $220,000 in his war chest, and Adams has $56,000.