WASHINGTON: Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney raised more than $100 million last month, Washington-based publication Politico said Thursday, putting fundraising pressure squarely on President Barack Obama.
The figure is a record for the 2012 campaign. While it is below the $150 million pulled in by Democrat Obama in September 2008, the most by any US politician in a month, Romney's haul is startling given that the funds were raised a full five months out from the November election.
Politico's Mike Allen broke the news on Twitter, after Romney's campaign leaked the June numbers.
The Obama team has yet to announce its fundraising totals for June, but the month may well be the second in a row in which Romney outraised the incumbent.
Obama's campaign suggested the leak of the June figures was aimed at distracting voters from key focal points of the campaign that have emerged in the last week.
"Mitt Romney is trying to distract from a week when he took contradictory positions on the freeloader penalty in the Affordable Care Act and we learned more about his offshored finances in Switzerland, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands," Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said, referring to reports that Romney keeps an undisclosed portion of his wealth outside the United States.
Obama lags behind Romney when it comes to super-PACs, the independent political action committees which can raise and spend unlimited funds to support candidates, although they cannot directly fund a campaign.
Wealthy conservatives are said to be funneling huge sums into outside groups that support Romney's agenda.
Fundraising is vital to US presidential elections, when candidates criss-cross the country for months and roll out several advertising campaigns, spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
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