New York’s attorney general has amassed a campaign war chest of $19 million, according to a source close to the Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner. That’s about $1 million more than Eliot Spitzer’s campaign indicated he had in the bank.

His total is expected to tower above that raised by candidates in the crowded Republican field and by Mr. Spitzer’s Democratic rival, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, who formed a fund-raising committee last week.

Tomorrow is the deadline for candidates to file their periodic fund-raising report to the state Board of Elections. The January filings are one of the first benchmarks by which political hopefuls who are trying to gain traction are judged.

The possible entrance into the race of Republican Thomas Golisano, a billionaire businessman who could pour $100 million of his own fortune into a campaign, is putting additional pressure on candidates to get a head start on fundraising.

The fund-raising figures are not always reliable predictors of electoral success. By this time in the 1994 election cycle, Governor Pataki, then a relatively unknown assemblyman, had raised virtually nothing. “When we walked into the door to the convention in May 1994,” Mr. Pataki’s campaign manager in that campaign, Robert Ryan, said, “we had $2,000 left in the bank.” Mr. Pataki raised $11 million between the convention and the 1994 election, said Mr. Ryan, a spokesman for the 2006 campaign of Randy Daniels, a former secretary of state under Mr. Pataki.

In the 2002 race, Democrat Andrew Cuomo reportedly had almost $7 million in the bank at this point in the race. H. Carl McCall, then the state comptroller, had about $5 million. Mr. Mc-Call went on to receive the Democratic nomination but lost Mr. Pataki.

Mr. Suozzi had about $4 million left from his county executive re-election campaign. Because his fund-raising committee got off the ground only last week, he isn’t expected to have come close to matching the cash Mr. Spitzer has on hand. Most of the Republican numbers are expected to be significantly lower, hovering around $1 million or less. As there is no clear frontrunner in the GOP, the biggest donors may be spreading around gifts to multiple candidates.

Under New York election law, contributions to the candidates from individuals may not exceed $33,900 for the general election. Corporations may donate a maximum of $5,000.