The New York City comptroller, William Thompson Jr., is outspending his competitors in the 2009 race for mayor while another mayoral hopeful with far less in the bank, the president of the Bronx, Adolfo Carrión, is trailing close behind.

Mr. Thompson, who has amassed $3.1 million, spent $219,195 on his campaign over the last six months, with well over half of the spending going to campaign consultants, according to figures released yesterday by the city’s campaign finance board. That brings Mr. Thompson’s total spending on the campaign to $543,380.

Mr. Carrión has spent $163,579 in the last six months, including $32,182 on two fund-raisers at the Tribeca Grill, according to figures on the New York State Board of Election’s Web site. He raised $842,585 over the last six months. Mr. Carrión is mailing his campaign finance figures in to the campaign finance board, so it did not have his most recent data yesterday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat of Queens and Brooklyn who raised the most money of any mayoral candidate during the last six months with more than $2 million, has spent $127,769 on his campaign. He spent $20,000 on a poll in early July.

The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, trails the pack in spending by putting only $81,393 into her campaign over the last six months. She collected more than $1 million in donations during that same period.

The amount of money spent by campaigns “is the most important figure, really,” a professor of public policy at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said. “You can see the direction the campaign’s taking, at least in a sort of macro-strategic sense. You can see what their priorities are.”

Since the last filing deadline in January, the city has approved new campaign finance rules that bar donations from limited liability corporations and limited liability partnerships. Unions are exempt from the new rules, which go into effect in 2008.

During the last six months, Mr. Weiner has collected about $166,000 from LLCs, and Mr. Thompson has pulled in about $44,500. Such entities gave Ms. Quinn about $30,000.

Ms. Quinn, who defended the legislation and insisted it didn’t contain loopholes, has received about $45,000 from union and labor groups in the last six months. Mr. Thompson collected about $18,000 from unions and labor groups, and Mr. Weiner pulled in $1,000.

The president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, who is up for reelection in 2009, has raised $515,743 in the last six months. Observers say he may be eyeing a run at citywide office and opt against a re-election campaign.