Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Romney campaign raised $170 million in September

NEW YORK – Mitt Romney’s campaign said Monday that it had raised $170.4 million in the month of September, falling short of the staggering $181 million monthly total reported by President Obama’s reelection campaign.

Spencer Zwick, Romney’s national finance chairman, said in an e-mail to top donors Monday that the campaign and the Republican National Committee’s joint fundraising committee brought in $170 million in September, by far the Republicans’ biggest haul of the campaign cycle. The Romney campaign later announced that the campaign, RNC and state party participants have approximately $191 million cash on hand.

This came during Romney’s most difficult month as a candidate, when he lost significant ground in the polls and when his disparaging comments about “the 47 percent” publicly surfaced. The September total does not reflect the surge in donor enthusiasm following Romney’s performance in the Oct. 3 debate with Obama.

“This is truly an incredible testament to this group’s commitment and hard work and represents the largest amount of money we have raised to date in any given month of the campaign,” Zwick wrote in an e-mail to Romney’s national finance committee.

In a statement released to reporters, Zwick said, “With less than one month left, we will continue the hard work of raising the resources to ensure that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can win in November and bring real change to the American people.”

The Romney campaign said its September fundraising was fueled by small-dollar donors. More than 1 million people gave $250 or less, accounting for about 93 percent of total donations.

The announcement comes as Romney’s top donors are gathering in New York for a three-day retreat at the Waldorf-Astoria luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

During the first two weeks of October, the Romney campaign raised more than $27 million online in small-dollar contributions, campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. That total, over a two-week span, is higher than the campaign’s total over any previous month, Saul said.

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