By Jon Campbell

Albany Bureau

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s re-election cam­paign has more than $33 million on hand to help ward off any potential Re­publican challengers.

Cuomo’s political com­mittee on Wednesday re­ported raising more than $7 million over the past six months while spend­ing about $1.5 million, bringing its total to $33.3 million at the beginning of an election year, cam­paign­finance records

showed. Cuomo doesn’t have an opponent, yet. But West­chester County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republi­can, gave his strongest in­dication yet of a potential challenge to Cuomo, tell­ing a Binghamton radio show Wednesday that he’s “leaning towards” run­n ing for governor.

Astorino, however, would be at a significant financial disadvantage. A January filing for Astori­no’s political campaign wasn’t reported as of Wednesday evening, but spokeswoman Jessica Proud said he had about $1 million on hand after rais­ing about $400,000 since early December.

The money in Cuomo’s warchest “is the cost that one would expect (Cuo­mo’s) entire re-election campaign would cost” and he’s still nearly a year away, said Bill Mahoney, research director for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Campaign committees across the state had until the end of Wednesday to report their latest cam­paign- finance figures. In November, all statewide elected offices and all 213 state legislative seats are up for election.

Cuomo’s campaign fil­ing showed he spent at least $500,000 on adver­tisements over the sum­m er touting the creation of the Moreland Commis­sion, a panel largely con­sisting of district attor­neys and law-enforce­ment officials tasked with investigation public cor­ruption in the state.

He showed more than $2 million in donations from political commit­tees, many of which are run by some of the state’s most-prominent labor unions, lobbying groups and law firms. Among them were the state Build­ing & Construction Trades Council ($60,800), the state Pipe Trades Associa­tion ($50,000) and Roches­ter- based Nixon Peabody ($25,000).

About 19 percent — or $1.3 million — of Cuomo’s donations from the past six months were from lim­ited liability companies, Mahoney said. Critics of the state campaign-fi­nance system have tar­geted donors who create many LLCs to get around donation limits on individ­uals and corporations.

Astorino, meanwhile, was in Syracuse on Wednesday meeting with potential donors and GOP leaders.

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