Big bucks: Romney, Perry top GOP fundraising race

JACK GILLUM, KEN THOMAS

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Repub­li­cans Mitt Rom­ney and Rick Perry are neck and neck in fill­ing their pres­i­den­tial cam­paign cof­fers after a sum­mer of strong fundrais­ing amid voter anger over jobs and the econ­omy. They’re pulling in big bucks — $30 mil­lion com­bined — though not nearly as big as the man they hope to replace in the White House.

For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Rom­ney on Fri­day reported roughly $14 mil­lion in con­tri­bu­tions dur­ing the July-September period and had nearly $15 mil­lion on hand. Texas Gov. Perry, who briefly surged to the top of the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial field this sum­mer, has roughly the same in the bank, hav­ing raised about $17 mil­lion dur­ing the first few weeks of his campaign.

Still, the GOP can­di­dates’ fundrais­ing efforts lag behind the man whose job they want: Pres­i­dent Barack Obama raised more than $70 mil­lion for his re-election and the Demo­c­ra­tic Party — $42.8 mil­lion for his own cam­paign and $27.3 mil­lion for the Demo­c­ra­tic National Committee.

Not count­ing major sup­port from GOP-leaning super PACs, the vir­tual tie between Rom­ney and Perry for cash on hand means the two have sim­i­lar amounts to spend on ads and travel just months before head­ing into key pri­mary states. Obama can save most of the $150 mil­lion he raised since April for next year because he does not face a pri­mary opponent.

Fil­ings released late Fri­day show a broad base of sup­port for Rom­ney, with major con­tri­bu­tions from Ore­gon to New York. The dona­tions include big checks from GOP stal­warts, such as $5,000 from the New Repub­li­can Major­ity Fund, a polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee affil­i­ated with for­mer Mis­sis­sippi Sen. Trent Lott.

The can­di­dates’ reports, all due Sat­ur­day, are offer­ing the first com­plete look at the finan­cial health of the GOP field. They are the first offi­cial tal­lies of dona­tions and expenses for con­tenders Perry, Min­nesota Rep. Michele Bach­mann, for­mer Utah Gov. Jon Hunts­man and busi­ness­man Her­man Cain.

The reports won’t cap­ture the tens of mil­lions raised by new, out­side groups known as super polit­i­cal action com­mit­tees, which can col­lect unlim­ited amounts of money to influ­ence elec­tions. Lead­ing con­tenders Perry and Rom­ney have at least one super PAC each work­ing to boost their can­di­da­cies, and another group is back­ing Obama’s re-election bid.

Obama’s cam­paign said 600,000 peo­ple donated to the cam­paign this recent quar­ter, more than the pre­vi­ous three months. Nearly 1 mil­lion sup­port­ers have given money to the cam­paign and 98 per­cent of the donors this sum­mer gave $250 or less, with an aver­age dona­tion of $56.

“Right now, just shy of 1 mil­lion peo­ple like you have taken own­er­ship of this cam­paign by pitch­ing in what­ever they can afford,” Obama cam­paign finance direc­tor Rufus Gif­ford said in an email to sup­port­ers Fri­day, adding that the campaign’s finan­cial report “shows this move­ment isn’t just as strong as ever — it’s growing.”

Rom­ney, com­ing out of strong show­ings at recent GOP debates, showed sim­i­lar sup­port from small-dollar donors, draw­ing most of his con­tri­bu­tions from checks less than $250. Rom­ney, a for­mer ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, had raised $18 mil­lion dur­ing the April-June period.

Yet Rom­ney also drew big dol­lars from sev­eral con­tri­bu­tion bundlers, records show, includ­ing for­mer finan­cial lob­by­ist T. Mar­tin Fiorentino and Judi Rhines of The Rath Group, the name­sake firm of for­mer George W. Bush cam­paign adviser Tom Rath.

For its part, the Obama cam­paign released its lat­est list of elite fundrais­ers who act as bundlers, well-connected donors who raise cam­paign cash from friends and busi­ness asso­ciates. The list included 351 indi­vid­u­als or cou­ples who col­lec­tively have raised at least $55.5 mil­lion since April.

The list included two fig­ures con­nected to Solyn­dra LLC, the Cal­i­for­nia solar com­pany that received a $528 mil­lion fed­eral loan and then later declared bank­ruptcy, prompt­ing a fed­eral inves­ti­ga­tion. Steve Spin­ner, an Energy Depart­ment adviser, raised at least $500,000 for the pres­i­dent, while Steve Westly, a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist who was an unpaid adviser to the depart­ment, raised between $200,000 and $500,000.

Other can­di­dates, mean­while, are sad­dled with hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars in debt.

Hunts­man owes about $890,000, even after giv­ing his cam­paign more than $2 mil­lion of his own money. Huntsman’s cam­paign on Fri­day was set to report fundrais­ing totals that showed he had $327,000 in the bank, show­ing dif­fi­culty for Huntsman’s fundrais­ing and sug­gest­ing why he shut down his national head­quar­ters in Orlando, Fla., last month.

“Gov. Hunts­man has the best record and bold­est vision for lead­ing this coun­try,” spokesman Tim Miller said, “and our cam­paign will have the resources nec­es­sary to ensure he will win New Hamp­shire and go on to the nomination.”

For­mer Min­nesota Gov. Tim Paw­lenty, who dropped out of the race in August, is still deep in debt. A fundrais­ing report cov­er­ing July through Sep­tem­ber shows he owes $453,000 for the cam­paign. All told, Paw­lenty raised about $5.4 mil­lion but had to give some of the money back because he could tap it only if he had won his party’s nomination.

Posted by AP News on Oct 14 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.