Mitt Romney dominated the fundraising race in June, out-raising President Barack Obama by $35 million dollars.
Romney and the Republican National Committee raised a combined $106 million, greatly outpacing Obama and the Democratic National Committee’s $71 million haul. According to Thomson Reuters, 94 percent of donations to Romney were $250 or less, totaling about $22.3 million. That means that the vast majority of the total came from a small number of large donations.
In a statement, Romney National Finance Chairman Spencer Zwick said that “This month’s fundraising is a statement from voters that they want a change of direction in Washington… Voters of all stripes — Republicans, independents and Democrats — have made it clear that President Obama has not lived up to the promises of his last campaign.”
The Obama campaign is clearly troubled by these numbers. In an email announcing their fundraising haul, the campaign warned that “our opponent has an unprecedented money-for-influence machine geared towards funneling big contributions to his campaign, the Republican Party, and a network of super PACs and anonymous front groups.” Similarly, Obama himself reportedly told donors last week that “if things continue as they have so far, I’ll be the first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign.”
Some Democrats hope that Romney’s big advantage will actually help Obama, by scaring liberal donors into getting off of the sidelines and contributing to the president’s campaign. Still, it appears that Romney has a very good chance to out-raise Obama through November — and that the dream of a billion dollar Obama campaign is completely dead.
