Obama Campaign Says It Beat Romney in Fund-Raising for August

12:51 a.m. | Updated The Obama campaign announced early Monday that it had raised $114 million in August, saying it had brought in more than the Romney campaign for the first time since April.

That number was released just after Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee said that their campaign had raised more than $111.6 million in August, leaving the candidate and his party with about $168.5 million in cash at the beginning of September.

Both campaigns have said they hope to raise more than three-quarters of a billion dollars, amounts that would shatter previous records for presidential spending. Neither campaign is accepting public funds for the general election campaign.

Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in a statement: “The key to fighting back against the special interests writing limitless checks to support Mitt Romney is growing our donor base, and we did substantially in the month of August.”

The Obama campaign said on Twitter that 98 percent of donations in August were for $250 or less. The Republican effort raised about $34.6 million in donations of less than $250, the campaign said, about a third of the total — a better showing with small donors than Mr. Romney has had in the past.

In a statement, Spencer Zwick, Mr. Romney’s finance chairman, and Reince Priebus, the R.N.C. chairman, said: “Americans are not better off than they were four years ago and they are looking for a change of leadership. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are offering bold solutions to our country’s problems – that is why we are seeing such tremendous support from donors across the country.”

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Romney campaign is on three-month fundraising winning streak

WASHINGTON – President Obama and his aides have been warning supporters for weeks that they're in danger of losing the money battle.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Mitt Romney leaves a hardware store in Wolfeboro, N.H., during a day off from the campaign trail on Monday.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

Mitt Romney leaves a hardware store in Wolfeboro, N.H., during a day off from the campaign trail on Monday.

They weren't just crying wolf.

Mitt Romney and the Republican Party said Monday that they picked up $101.3 million in July, the third straight month they have outraised the incumbent's campaign.

Obama and the Democrats raised just over $75 million in July, his campaign announced.

Romney's July advantage was the biggest yet, leading to increasingly urgent fundraising appeals from Obama and the Democrats.

One e-mail to supporters from Obama's campaign chief operating officer, Ann Marie Habershaw, used the subject line, "This is why I keep asking."

"We've been outraised by Mitt Romney and the Republicans for two months running," she said in the Aug. 2 e-mail, one of hundreds collected by ProPublica.org. "Right now, Romney and his allies are clobbering us on the airwaves in nearly every single battleground state — we've got to make sure our message can get through, too."

Romney's national finance chairman, Spencer Zwick, said Romney's financial support shows "this is more than a campaign — it is a cause."

Comparing monthly campaign fundraising:

Source: Romney and Obama campaigns

The release of monthly fundraising figures — which include money raised by the campaigns and the national party committees — has become a ritual for the presidential contenders. Romney's campaign announced his totals in an early-morning e-mail to reporters; the Obama camp followed up via Twitter hours later.

Obama boasted that 98% had given $250 or less (Romney's figure was 94%) and that 26% of his July donors had never contributed before.

Romney and his allies have $185.9 million cash on hand, but Obama did not disclose how much he has left to spend — an important number as the campaign enters the final three months. That number will come when the campaigns make their required federal disclosures on Aug. 20.

"There's not going to be inadequate resources for either candidate," said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a money-in-politics research group. Even so, she said, it's nice to have the freedom that money brings: when and where to run ads, when and where to travel and which field offices to staff with more people.

If Romney does wind up with a money advantage, Krumholz said, "there will be a lot of nervous people on the Obama side."

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the campaign's not panicking. She said fundraising is on track to produce "the biggest grass-roots campaign in history," one capable of "reaching voters in the key target states."

"We are where we need to be," she said.

On Monday night, Obama was scheduled to headline his 196th and 197th fundraisers since launching his re-election bid in spring 2011. That puts him on pace to triple the 86 fundraisers George W. Bush held in his 2004 campaign.

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Romney again tops Obama in fundraising

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON For the third straight month, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party significantly trailed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the Republican Party in fundraising.

Recent polls

Washington: Obama +17 (SurveyUSA)

Indiana: Romney +16 (Rasmussen)

Romney's campaign on Monday reported a July haul of $101million with the Republican National Committee, compared to the $75million that Obama's campaign said it had brought in with the Democratic National Committee.

Romney also raised more cash than Obama in May and June.

The July fundraising reports came as Obama was set to raise at least $2.5 million at a pair of events in Connecticut.

GOP-aligned super PACs also are raising and spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat Obama on Nov. 6.

Romney was taking another day off the campaign trail while the president worked at the White House.

Romney's campaign announced that he will spend Saturday through Aug. 14 campaigning by bus through a different state each day. The trip opens in Virginia, hits North Carolina and Florida and ends next Tuesday in Ohio.

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Romney's Fund-Raising Outpaces Obama's Again in July

The fund-raising machine behind Mitt Romney and the Republican Party once again bested President Obama’s effort last month, raising $25 million more in July than the president and his Democratic allies did.

Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee raised $101.3 million in July, his campaign announced Monday, as Republican donors rallied behind their presumptive nominee with the national convention only a few weeks away.

The president’s campaign announced on Twitter on Monday morning that his July fund-raising topped out at about $75 million. “Every bit helps,” the campaign tweeted, noting that 98 percent of the contributions were under $250.

Mr. Obama’s advisers have all but conceded the money race to Mr. Romney. Fund-raising e-mails from the campaign have taken a more urgent tone over the summer, repeatedly warning supporters of the financial advantage that the Republicans will hold going into the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

More detailed information about the July fund-raising has not yet been released by the two candidates. All campaigns are required to report their fund-raising to the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 20.

But the Republican figure keeps Mr. Romney and his party on pace to bring in $800 million for the cycle, the target set by Mr. Romney’s team in April. Roughly a quarter of the Republicans’ haul, $25.7 million, came in donations of under $250, as Mr. Romney worked to increase his appeal among small donors.

The campaign, the Republican National Committee, and a joint fund established by the Republicans to raise presidential campaign cash ended July with $185.9 million in cash on hand. They did not disclose what proportion of the money would end up in Mr. Romney’s campaign coffers, which can only accept $5,000 from each donor every election cycle, and how much to the R.N.C., which can accept 10 times that amount from each donor.

The strong fund-raising puts renewed pressure on President Obama to bring in more cash and underscores the near-certainty that Mr. Romney will remain financially competitive with an incumbent whose fund-raising prowess has long been a hallmark.

While Mr. Obama steadily raised more than Mr. Romney in 2011 and early this year, he has also spent far more, amassing a campaign tab of more than $400 million with the Democratic National Committee through the end of June.

Follow Michael D. Shear on Twitter at @shearm.

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Romney Team Outpaces Obama in Fund-Raising Again

Mr. Romney and the Republican National Committee took in $101.3 million in July, his campaign announced Monday, as Republican donors rallied behind their presumptive nominee with the national convention only a few weeks away. The president’s campaign announced on Twitter on Monday morning that his July fund-raising with the Democratic National Committee topped out at about $75 million — the third month in a row they have brought in less than the Republicans.

Mr. Obama’s team appears to have all but conceded the money race, deluging the president’s grass-roots supporters this summer with fund-raising e-mails and warning supporters of the financial advantage that the Republicans will hold going into the final months of the campaign.

“Make no mistake, we will be outspent,” a senior campaign official said during a conference call with reporters last month.

More detailed information about the July fund-raising, including how much the candidates themselves raised and how they spent their money, has not yet been released by the two candidates. All campaigns are required to report their fund-raising to the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 20.

But the Republican figure keeps Mr. Romney and his party on pace to bring in $800 million for the cycle, the target set by Mr. Romney’s team in April. Roughly a quarter of the Republicans’ haul, $25.7 million, came in donations under $250, as Mr. Romney worked to increase his appeal among small donors.

“Americans are clearly looking for a change in the White House,” Reince Priebus, the chairman of the R.N.C., said in a statement. “While President Obama claims that his economic plan ‘worked,’ the American people know that his policies haven’t worked and he has failed to fix our economy.”

Because Mr. Obama easily outraised Mr. Romney all of last year and early this year, the president does not need to beat Mr. Romney in the months ahead to bring in the roughly $750 million his team has said they wish to raise in this cycle.

But heavy spending on field organizers, technology and advertising — more than $400 million through the end of June — appears to have cost Mr. Obama the impressive cash advantage he once had. And Democratic-leaning “super PACs” have raised far less money than their Republican counterparts, forcing Mr. Obama to spend heavily on attack advertisements against Mr. Romney, even while conservative groups pummel him on the airwaves.

The Republicans have used the cash surge of the last two months to begin trying to match Mr. Obama’s field advantage, opening about 250 offices around the country, recruiting volunteers and hiring more than 600 staff members for the fall campaign. On Saturday, the R.N.C. announced that organizers had made their one millionth voter contact of the election cycle. The committee has also begun running general election advertisements, as Mr. Romney began doing in May.

The campaign, the Republican National Committee and a joint fund established by the Republicans to raise presidential campaign cash ended July with $185.9 million in cash on hand. They did not disclose what part of the money would end up in Mr. Romney’s campaign coffers, which can accept only $5,000 from each donor every election cycle, and how much would go to the R.N.C., which can accept more than 10 times that amount from each donor.

Mr. Obama did not disclose how much money his campaign and the D.N.C. have on hand.

The strong fund-raising puts renewed pressure on Mr. Obama to bring in more cash and suggests certainty that Mr. Romney will remain financially competitive with an incumbent whose fund-raising prowess has long been a hallmark.

Underscoring the campaign’s changed fortunes, Mr. Obama’s campaign is no longer announcing its fund-raising totals in lush videos featuring his senior staff or field workers. Instead, on Monday, not long after Mr. Romney made his announcement, Mr. Obama’s campaign put out its total in a brief message to his Twitter followers, thanking them for their money.

“Every bit helps,” the campaign wrote.

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Romney Fund-Raising Breakfast in Israel to Bar News Media

JERUSALEM — Mitt Romney’s high-dollar breakfast with donors at the King David Hotel here on Monday morning will be closed to the news media, his campaign decided Saturday, a change from the norm for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

A one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.

The trip to Israel holds opportunity and peril for Mr. Romney, and his campaign aides have spent weeks preparing him for the fine diplomatic line he must walk while abroad. His relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, which dates to their days as young consultants in Boston, is being scrutinized for signs of warmth or cooling, and everything said — and unsaid — will be carefully parsed.

The fund-raiser may be an especially delicate situation for Mr. Romney because of the attendance of Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate who has pledged to spend some $100 million this election to help defeat President Obama, as well as elect Republicans. Though Mr. Adelson first supported Newt Gingrich during the early nominating contests because of his strong support for Israel, he has since thrown his support behind Mr. Romney. Mr. Adelson and his wife recently gave $5 million to a pro-Romney “super PAC.”

Mr. Romney seems to be taking pains to keep the fund-raiser under wraps. Typically, a small pool of reporters is allowed into fund-raisers held in public locations, in order to provide a written report on Mr. Romney’s remarks. Though there have been a few occasions when the campaign has tried to limit access — citing an especially small venue or the fact that Mr. Romney was not giving formal remarks — this is the first time that a public fund-raiser has been closed without any explanation.

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Romney, GOP spring ahead in fundraising

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON Mitt Romney outraised President Barack Obama in May, the first time the Republican presidential challenger has jumped ahead of Obama and his prodigious fundraising apparatus. The numbers illustrate how Romney and the Republican Party have jelled as a force after a protracted GOP primary.

Other developments

Automatic defense cutslooming in January would be more devastating than previously feared and make it impossible for President Barack Obama to refocus his national-security strategy, a bipartisan group of former lawmakers and retired military officers said Thursday. Members of the Bipartisan Policy Center painted a dire picture for the nation's economy, the military and large and small defense contractors if the automatic reductions occurred on Jan. 2, 2013. Based on a special task force's calculations, the group said the cuts would mean an indiscriminate, across-the-board 15 percent reduction in programs and activities within the military, not the 10 percent that had been estimated.

Scoffing at a White House veto threat, the House voted Thursday to repeal a tax on medical-device makers that Republicans cast as a job-killing levy that would stifle an innovative industry. Lawmakers approved the measure 270-146, with 37 Democrats from states with a heavy presence of medical- equipment makers like Minnesota, New York and California joining all 233 voting Republicans. Most Democrats said the bill was yet another GOP attempt to weaken President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, which created the tax to help pay for that law's expansion of health-care coverage to 30million Americans.

A group seeking to recall Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced Thursday that it has ended the effort following Gov. Scott Walker's victory in Wisconsin's recall election. The group called Michigan Rising said it will stop collecting signatures, noting it already was short of its own gathering goals. Instead, the group said it will focus on a long-term effort to form a progressive think tank, develop progressive leaders and support current progressive legislators.

-- Wire services

Romney and his party raised more than $76 million last month, the campaign said Thursday. Obama's campaign reported that it and the Democratic Party raised $60 million for the month.

Obama, forced onto the defensive by lackluster employment numbers, launched a television ad Thursday in nine key election-year states targeting Congress and blaming lawmakers for not acting on his job proposals. The approach represents an expanded ad focus for Obama, who had been going after Romney.

The fundraising numbers and Obama's new ad signal a new stage in the campaign as a resurgent Romney capitalizes on his emergence as the GOP's standard-bearer and as Obama is forced to confront the political implications of a weak economic recovery.

"We got beat," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote bluntly in an e-mail to supporters, urging contributors to step up their giving.

For Romney, the latest figure represents a significant jump in fundraising. He and the GOP brought in $40 million in April, just short of the $43.6 million the Democratic president and his party raised that month. What's more, Romney is getting a significant boost from Republican-leaning super PACs that have raised far more and spent far more than their Democratic-leaning counterparts.

Romney, stepping up his criticism of Obama, campaigned and was raising money Thursday in Missouri. In a speech at a factory in St. Louis, Romney accused Obama not only of a failure of policy but of "a moral failure of tragic proportions."

Citing millions of unemployed or underemployed Americans, Romney said that Obama nevertheless claimed he was doing a great job.

"I will not be that president of doubt and deception," he said.

Asked afterward to comment on topping Obama in fundraising, Romney said only: "Long way to go."

Obama was mixing more fundraising with official business Thursday as he wrapped up a two-day West Coast trip that included four fundraisers on Wednesday. He started the day under a sweltering sun in the Los Angeles area at a breakfast fundraiser for about 300 people. Tickets started at $2,500.

Later, addressing about 2,500 college students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Obama picked up on the theme of his latest campaign ad and blamed congressional inaction for the lack of additional job growth.

"If they had taken all the steps I was pushing for back in September, we could have put even more Americans back to work. We could have sliced through these headwinds more easily," Obama said.

Obama campaign officials noted that Romney's fundraising surge could be temporary and that it reflects his recently sealed standing as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, which allows him to raise more general election money. It also lets him raise money jointly for his campaign and for the Republican Party.

The Obama officials pointed out that Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry briefly experienced a similar surge in fundraising over President George W. Bush in the spring of 2004 after Kerry had locked up the nomination.

In his e-mail, Messina sought donations of $3 or more to "close the gap" against Romney in fundraising.

"More people giving a little bit is the only way to compete with a few people giving a lot,'' he said. So, let's fight like hell and win this thing."

Obama has been an active fundraiser and lately has stepped up the number of events he holds with donors. As of Thursday, the president has done 153 fundraisers since filing as a candidate for re-election on April 4, 2011, according to statistics kept by CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller. During same period in the 2004 election cycle, Bush had participated in 79 fundraisers.

In all, Obama and the Democratic National Committee and other state-focused funds have hauled in more than $500 million during the 2012 election campaign, compared with more than $480 million for Romney and the Republican Party.

The Romney campaign reported that the party and the campaign had $107 million cash on hand at the end of May. Obama's campaign did not list its comparable figure on Thursday, but last month, it reported $115 million in the bank through the end of April, with the DNC listing $24 million in hand.

Obama's new ad does not mention congressional Republicans, but its target is clear. Republicans have proposed their own measures aimed at creating jobs and have blocked several Obama proposals to promote hiring of teachers and police officers and to increase infrastructure projects. Obama has proposed paying for those measures with tax increases on wealthier taxpayers, an idea Republicans reject.

The ad is airing in the key presidential-election states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The campaign declined to reveal how much it was spending on the ads, saying only that it was a "significant" purchase of air time.

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