Mitt Romney fundraising collects $106 million in June, Obama $71 m
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney fundraising collected $106 million in June, while President Barack Obama collected only $71 million during the same month
This Monday President Barack Obama announced that he had raised $71 million in June for his re-election campaign. It is the second month in a row when the president has managed a low amount of collection despite the growing kitty of competitor Mitt Romney, who managed $106 million in June.
Obama campaign officials have publicly expressed their worry over their falling behind in the money race. Jim Messina, the President’s campaign manager, expressed his concern in an email to Obama’s supporters a few days ago, “Their gap is getting wider, and if it continues at this pace, it could cost us the election.”
The stress on Obama is multifaceted even as he tries to compete with Romney’s enormous personal chest of financial aids, tries to deal with the continual attacks in the form of ads that the PACs have been aiming at him and struggling to keep up with his campaign colections.
Romney on the other hand has been playing cunning. He is crediting his large collection to the numerous small-dollar supporters who gave less than 250$, thus playing the double-edged sword that also indicates his popularity among the big masses. Romney clearly hints that he is wanted by a large, grassroots group of Americans. His campaign officials stated that 94% of 571,000 donors gave those amounts in June, or about $22 million. Despite this touting, Romney’s big chest of funds has been fattened mostly by wealthy donors who average contributing $2,400 each. This average comes for the 34,000 wealthy owners who bulked up Romney’s chest.
Though Obama is popular among the wealthy glitterati in Hollywood and he is known to host star-studded fund raising parties in the Hollywood (especially the recent and most talked about one in George Clooney’s residence), he is being strongly challenged by wealthy owners who back Romney. Ironically, this is from the same business-background candidate who once attacked the influence of corporate money and super PACs.
The war on the front of PACs is also turning tense with Romney’s Republican-aligned super PACs, including Restore Our Future and American Crossroads, making those backing Obama sweat. Romney’s backer PACs plan to spend a river of dollars to defeat Obama, and the current President’s PACs have not done much in comparison.
This is being translated by analysts as the first instance when there is a strong chance of a candidate being out-raised by his challenger. That would make Obama the first candidate to face such a pathetic reason for a loss in the presidential race.
To counter this bleak future, Obama supporters are being asked, in the form of online fund-raising pleas, for donations as small as $3 to back their candidate.
Ann Marie Habershaw, the Obama campaign’s chief operating officer, said, “We exceeded expectations — more than 706,000 people like you stepped up and pitched in for a grand total of $71 million raised for this campaign and the Democratic Party. Bad news? We still got beat,” she said. “Handily.”
Despite the growing lack of funds, Obama has strong supporters among the financially sound group that contains Hollywood glamour and Silicon Valley nerd chic.
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