This news surprised me: Mitt Romney raised almost as much as Hillary Clinton did in the first quarter of this year. Where Hillary raised $26 million (and thereby breaking the old Democratic record), Romney raised $23 million (which is a party record as well). Not bad for someone who stands at 3% in the polls.
Giuliani raised $15 million, McCain… well, McCain has “not publicly disclosed his total” yet. Of course, McCain already tried his best to lower expectations: he “admitted that he didn’t particularly like to raise money. He told reporters in New Hampshire that he got off to a late start for this campaign and was “going to pay a price for it’.”
Romney is the number one fundraiser for the GOP right now. It will be interesting to watch whether he’ll be able to keep it up and whether it’ll impact the polls (I hope for him that it does… and fast). I cannot quite imagine that people will keep on giving if he doesn’t attract more support from the Republican voters.
We still have to wait for Obama’s exact numbers, but reports indicate that he’ll announce to have raised approximately $21 or $22 million. If those reports are accurate, it’s huge. Obama, the outsider, the man no one knew raises $22 million in the first quarter of the pre-election year. One thing that will worry him and his campaign is, of course, whether they will be able to keep it up: he cannot afford to shine too early.
This post has been cross posted at www.mvdg.wordpress.com (which is updated throughout the day by yours truly. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please consider doing so now).
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