It’s seemingly more difficult than ever to track one of the most important aspects of presidential campaigns – fundraising. With the advent of Super PACs and joint fundraising ventures, it can be difficult to see which side has an advantage. Thankfully, there are organizations like the Campaign Finance Institute. CFI has been around for a while and does great work analyzing information submitted by the campaigns to the FEC so we can see the bigger picture.
Today, CFI released a report on presidential fundraising based on the last reporting period for the campaigns. There is a lot of great information in this report and others, but one piece of information stands out – the available cash on hand for Romney and his allies vs. Obama and his allies. Here’s the CFI figure depicting the state of the money chase as of the end of June.
It’s clear that President Obama remains a strong fundraiser as his campaign committee outraised Romney’s. However, as CFI notes:
Romney will be helped by the fact that the Republican National Committee did better than its Democratic counterpart, and the SuperPAC supporting Romney did better than the one supporting Obama. Particularly relevant for looking forward is the amount available in cash on hand. Romney, and the committees supporting him, had $181 million in net cash on hand on June 30. This compares to $139 for Obama and the committees supporting the President.
This is critical for several reasons. First, Romney and his allies clearly have the funds (and fundraising power) to compete with Obama. Second, and this is related to the first point, Romney is not likely to be in the same position John McCain was in 2008 when he was vastly outspent by Obama (see here and here for only two examples). Romney may be able to make some states that were not competitive in 2008 more competitive this time simply because he has the financial resources to do so. This includes Michigan where, in 2008, McCain pulled much of his staff and financial resources out of the state long before Election Day. While we in Michigan haven’t been inundated with ads like those in some other states like Florida or Ohio, we’ve started to see these financial resources impact our TV screens. With fundraising figures like this, we’re likely to see this continue.
An important caveat from CFI, however:
Romney’s joint fundraising committee (Romney Victory Inc.) lists the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee as partners in the joint fundraising venture. While the joint committee showed $57.7 million cash on hand on June 30, we cannot yet know how much of this will be used to support the congressional campaign committees.
That’s important to be sure. But, even if those funds were to all be designated for the NRSC, Romney and his allies would still be on par with Obama and his allies. Not only do the polls show this to be a tight race, but the money chase is close as well.
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