Obama Breaks the $1 Billion Barrier
The costliest presidential race in U.S. history has a new milestone: President Obama and his allies have cracked the billion-dollar barrier, according to separate analyses of federal campaign filings by Reuters and Politico. While Reuters doesn't put an exact number on it, (it merely says "more than $1 billion" was raised) Politico reports that Obama for America, the Democratic National Committee and the joint fundraising group Obama Victory Fund have pooled together $1,009,000,000 since early 2011.
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That's a lot of cash, and the Obama campaign appears a little uncomfortable with the figure telling both publications: We didn't raise that much money, only $988 million since April 4, 2011. No dice, say the two reports. "Reuters totals are based on a more commonly used calculation method that includes campaign funds starting on April 1, 2011, and party efforts dating back to January 1, 2011." Additionally, the campaign chalked up its success to small donations, saying that 4.2 million people have donated since April 2011.
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Still, the Romney campaign's doing just fine. While it's overall fundraising is behind Obama's, he's not far behind and raised more than Obama in the first 17 days of October, reports The Washington Post. "Obama, the Democratic Party and related fundraising committees raised a combined $88.8 million for the first 15 days of October, reports showed, while Romney’s fundraising apparatus reaped $111.8 million during the same period." The late surge of cash to Romney is attributed to two pro-Romney groups: Karl Rove's American Crossroads, which brought in $79.6 million through Oct. 15; and Restore Our Future, which brought in $130.6 million thus far.
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Overall, The New York Times reports that both candidates and their allies are on pace to raise a whopping $2 billion this election. Analyzing the sources of money, The Times breaks it down to Romney winning big off Wall Street big wigs and Super PACS and Obama winning big off Silicon Valley firms, women's groups and small donors.
