Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney kept up his impressive fundraising pace in the month of July, amassing $101.3 million for his campaign. While the number was a bit less than the $106.1 he raised in June, it was still an impressive number that would put significant pressure on President Obama to keep the cash rolling in amid reports that his campaign is short on funds.
Romney reported that there was a total of $185.9 million in cash reserves on hand for his campaign at the of July, an accumulation of money from his campaign, the Republican National Committee and state parties.
Campaign officials once again used the big number as an indication of Romney’s popularity among voters.
“Once again, we see that for many people this is more than a campaign, it is a cause,” Romney finance chairman Spencer Zwick and RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in a joint statement.
A portion of the $185.9 million in cash reserves can’t be used until the general election, after Romney is formally nominated at his party’s convention at the end of August in Tampa. But Romney did not reveal how much that amount is.
The campaign did not disclose how much of Romney’s cash reserves are set aside for the general election. That is money he cannot tap until month’s end when he is formally nominated at his party’s convention in Tampa.
The Obama campaign has not yet released its fundraising numbers for July. A report in the New York Times yesterday indicated that the Obama campaign has taken a huge risk by burning through hundreds of million of dollars in the early stages of the presidential campaign, opening offices in swing states, registering voters and getting to know local communities, but the expenditures have left the campaign dangerously low on cash heading into the final three months of the campaign.
The analysis of the Obama expenditures by the New York Times shows that the campaign has spent $400 million from the beginning of 2011 to June 30, 2012. That number includes $86 million on advertising, $50 million on hiring Democratic party workers, $46 million on direct mail and postage, $24 million on phones and even $25,000 on flower arrangements. The result is a vast and well-organized network of on-the-ground staff and infrastructure—and a discernible panic among Democrats that the campaign possibly has put itself in danger because the Mitt Romney campaign has far more money, $25 million more cash on hand at the start of July.
Obama is expected to collect $2.5 million at two Connecticut events today— including one co-hosted by big Hollywood names such as producer Harvey Weinstein, writer Aaron Sorkin and actress Anne Hathaway, according to the Associated Press.
