WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama reported Sunday raising at least $32.5 million for his presidential campaign from April through June, a record for a Democratic candidate.
That is more than what Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama’s main Democratic rival, has said she would raise for the reporting period that ended Saturday.
At least $31 million of Obama’s total is for party primaries, according to campaign aides.
The first-term senator from Illinois received donations from more than 154,000 individual contributors and through the first half of the year had 258,000 donors. Obama raised $25.7 million in the first three months of the year.
Vaulting ahead of Clinton in the money race is an important achievement. Despite broad public interest in Obama’s candidacy, he trails the New York senator and former first lady in national polls.
Several leading candidates in both parties have raised money for both the primary and general elections. Clinton has been the most aggressive in tapping donors for both.
General election money, however, cannot be used unless the candidate becomes the nominee. Early in the year, Obama raised more than Clinton in primary dollars.
Clinton aides have said she would raise “in the range” of $27 million in the April-through-June period and predicted Obama would do better.
First, I'll say that I'm amazed at the fund raising numbers between Obama and Clinton--with the primary season still six months away. This really has become a money race between Obama and Clinton with both candidates raking in big dollars. In fact, all the Democratic candidates are raising some impressive numbers. According to MSNBC News, Democrat John Edwards raised more than $9 million from April through June with 100,000 donors during the first half of the year. The Edwards campaign said it is on track to raise $40 million by the Iowa caucuses in January. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson raised more than $7 million, with a six-month total result coming in at $14 million. But what I find even more amazing here is the Republican fund raising totals. According to MSNBC News:
Among Republicans, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign has said he will fall short of the $20.7 million raised in earlier in the year.
Rudy Giuliani was expected to exceed his first quarter total of $16 million. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was struggling to match the $13.8 million he took in during the first quarter.
Details of how much the campaigns raised and spent in the latest period will not be available until the candidates file financial reports with the Federal Election Commission by July 15. While several Democrats had already revealed their total sums, Republicans were not expected to announce their figures until Monday or later in the week.
If these numbers are accurate, then the Obama campaign has raised more than twice that of the Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani. Even the Clinton campaign has raised almost double than that of the Giuliani campaign. Obama has raised almost $12 million more than the Romney campaign. The Democrats are leading the Republicans in the fund raising raising race. This is a strong advantage for the Democratic Party in allowing the candidates to target their message to the voters in different market segments, and to attack not just their Democratic opponents, but also the Republican candidates. And with the American public turning against the Iraq war, and against the Bush administration, it is going to be interesting to see just how long the Democrats can maintain their fund raising advantage over that of the Republicans.
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