Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley is expected to announce on Monday that she is running for mayor in 2013, setting up a race of at least three people, including Dayton Mayor Gary Leitzell and former Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge and County Auditor A.J. Wagner.

Wagner and Whaley are Democrats and Leitzell is an independent. Montgomery County Republican Party Chairman Rob Scott said he has a couple of potentially interested candidates but it is too early to say if they will file by the March deadline.

Whaley on Friday put out a news release saying she would make an announcement at a news conference at 10:30 a.m. Monday at the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown Dayton. She did not return calls seeking comment.

But an email dated Nov. 28 obtained by the Dayton Daily News shows that Liz Walters, political director of the Ohio Democratic Party, is organizing a carpool for supporters from Columbus to come to Dayton on Monday to join Whaley “as she kicks off her 2013 bid for Mayor of Dayton.” Walters could not be reached for comment.

Leitzell, who unseated Mayor Rhine McLin in 2009, said he is already knocking on doors getting signatures on his nominating petitions. He said hundreds of people have asked him to run for re-election.

“I’ve grown into it,” Leitzell said of the job he took as a newcomer to elective politics. “I could be doing other things and probably making more money.”

Wagner and Montgomery County Democratic Party Chairman Mark Owens both put a positive spin on the possibility of two prominent Democrats going head to head in a bid for mayor. Owens, is treasurer of Whaley’s campaign and declined to confirm she is running. But he said if the three candidates run in the nonpartisan primary race, which sends the two with the most votes on to the November election, it guarantees that one Democrat will be in the running for mayor.

“It’s good news for Dayton,” said Wagner, who retired in 2010 after serving a decade as judge and nine years as Montgomery County auditor. “I think it’s good that Dayton will have a choice between three candidates that have all had significant experience working with the city and working with the citizens. That can’t be anything but good.”

Wagner believes he is the best of the three for mayor.

“Obviously the race will get down to whose resume is probably the best and I’d like to think mine is,” Wagner said.

He said he is not bothered by the fact that the county chairman is working on Whaley’s campaign or that a top state party official is organizing her supporters.

“I know that the party leadership is grateful to Nan for all the political work that she’s done,” Wagner said.

Whaley serves on the party’s state central committee and spearheaded get out the vote efforts, including serving as early vote director for the party. She previously served as executive director of the county party and a top aide to Montgomery County Auditor Karl Keith. She’s in her second term as city commissioner.