Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney raised $18.25 million over the past three months, a sum likely to put him head and shoulders above his Republican presidential rivals in the money chase.
“Voters are responding to Mitt Romney’s message that President Obama’s policies have failed and that we need new leadership in Washington,” said Romney national finance chairman Spencer Zwick. “Our fundraising for the second quarter represents the strong support Mitt Romney has across the country.”
All the money Romney raised is for the primary race; he ended June with $12.6 million in the bank. He raised more than half his total for the quarter during a single call day in Las Vegas in May.
His fundraising total is short of the $23.5 million, including roughly $2.5 million of his own money, that he raised in the first quarter of 2007, during his last presidential race. He did not make any personal contributions in this reporting period, although he has not ruled out doing so during the 2012 campaign. In the 2008 race, Romney donated $44.5 million of his own money to his effort.
Romney’s total virtually ensures that Obama will lap the entire Republican field easily — the president is likely to announce his fundraising numbers this week — and he may surpass the $60 million goal laid out to his national finance team earlier this year.
Read more at The Washington Post.