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Concrete and asphalt—those could be the big winners of next week’s D.C. Council At-Large Special Election.

A review of campaign finance reports finds that construction companies have given big money to Interim Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At Large) and Patrick Mara, two of the front-runners in Tuesday’s election. Another top contender, Elissa Silverman, has sworn off all corporate contributions, while Paul Zukerberg, Perry Redd and Matthew Frumin have received few, if any, corporate dollars.

All told, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation, almost half of Bonds’ campaign war chest has been provided by 24 corporations, while less than a quarter of Mara’s has similarly benefited from corporate and business contributions. Both have similarly been helped by spending by independent groups, some of which is similarly funded by corporations or unions in D.C.

Bonds has received at least $12,000 of her total $125,000 in fundraising from 13 construction-related corporations or corporate executives in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Her current employer, Fort Myer Construction, gave her campaign $1,000, and its president, Jose Rodrigues, kicked in another $1,000. It is one of the largest contractors for the city, and has regularly contributed to local campaigns. If elected, Bonds has pledged to quit her job there.

Bonds has also taken money from some of the city’s most well-connected lobbyists, including David Wilmot and A. Scott Bolden, as well as from the D.C. Democratic State Committee and unions.

Mara, on the other hand, has been well-funded over the years by Miller & Long, a local company that touts itself as one of the biggest concrete contractors in the country and one of the city’s biggest construction employer.

Much like his 2008 and 2011 council runs, this year Mara has taken in $4,000 from the company, its executives and its subsidiaries. (He’s raised just over $139,000 for his campaign, all told.) Brett McMahon, a company vice-president, conservative commentator and funder of local and national Republican causes, has additionally given $10,000 to the D.C. Action Fund, an independent PAC that recently paid for mailers and robocalls promoting Mara’s candidacy and urging residents to vote against Silverman. (McMahon has also been a spokesman for an anti-union group.)

He has also taken in money from parking interests and realtors; the D.C. Association of Realtors just spent $20,000 on a pro-Mara mailer, and independent groups funded by parking lot groups paid for independent mailers in past races. (Bonds and the Democrats, on the hand, have benefited from antui-Mara mailers sent out by unions.)

None of this campaign giving is illegal, and many other councilmembers—including Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Vincent Orange (D-At Large), and others—have benefited from corporate contributions. (The companies that have given to Bonds and Mara often contribute to many campaigns.) But it could stand in stark contract to the repeated claims by both Bonds and Mara that they would be more ethical legislators than their colleagues have been in the past, and it has left them open to attacks that they will be little more than corporate shills.

For Mara, though, he says it’s a matter of balancing what he wants against what he needs to do to win the seat next Tuesday, especially when Bonds has taken more corporate money than he has.

“I’m running to win, and I support publicly financed in the style of New York, but in the existing reality…I’m attempting to win here. You need resources to win, and I do support publicly financed campaigns, I think we need to eliminate outside groups, whether it’s corporations or unions, from giving, and it should be limited to individual giving,” he said.

According to the Sunlight Foundation’s analysis, more than three-quarters of his contributions have come from individuals, a point Mara makes to defend against any claims that he’ll do the bidding of any one corporation after being elected.

“I think a lot of the reason that I have a broad-based support from the Chamber and at the same time the Sierra Club is because I am looking at things from a different perspective than councilmembers are now.”

In an email, Bonds defended her own record, saying that it doesn’t boil down to where the money comes from, but rather how the councilmembers acts while in office.

“You can’t legislate good behavior, but there are measures we can implement to further enhance accountability and deter officials from improper behavior—but nothing is full-proof. Also public officials must hold each other accountable, and we do so by giving full support to the ethics committee and ensuring they have the resources and bandwidth to conduct independent research and investigations required to hold officials accountable. I also support measures that increase transparency in campaign finances, so the public can objectively view donors and adjudicate for themselves whether an official favors corporate interest over public interest,” said Bonds.

Silverman, for her part, has gone a step further, refusing to take corporate dollars and touting the role she played in promoting a ballot initiative that would have banned corporate dollars from local campaigns. Critics have pointed out that she did take money from two individuals who have been involved in D.C. contracts in the past, though.

Much of the debate within the council over campaign finances have boiled down much the same way as the At-Large race has: some legislators say that more disclosure is the best solution, while others argue that wider-reaching limits on who can give are needed.

Last year Mayor Vince Gray and Attorney General Irv Nathan introduced a bill that would limit bundling of donations and would prohibit companies with pending contracts of over $250,000 from giving to councilmembers. Many critics of the bill say it doesn’t go far enough, though, and is too complicated. Instead, they argue, the city should ban corporate giving altogether.