Obama's Money Was Three Times as Much as McCain in General Election
He was not quite the first $1 billion president -- but he was three quarters of the way there. In 21-plus months, Barack Obama raised nearly $750 million, surpassing all of his White House opponents this year and also eclipsing the total amount of money raised by all of the presidential candidates combined in 2004.
Post-election campaign finance reports, filed by the candidates and national political party committees with the Federal Election Commission Thursday, reinforced the striking contrast between the amount of money Obama had at his disposal versus Republican rival John McCain.
From Oct. 16 through Nov. 24, 20 days after he was elected president, the Obama campaign reported bringing in $104.1 million from more than a million contributors. In that time period, Obama raised more money than the McCain campaign had available to spend during the general election, which officially began after the parties held their late summer conventions. The campaigned finished the period sitting on $30 million. It's not clear how that money will be used.
Obama's best fundraising month came in September, when he obliterated all records by raking in $153.1 million. More people gave to the Obama campaign than any campaign in history. Team Obama estimated its total number of donors to be just shy of 4 million.
McCain's fundraising for the 2008 cycle was not terrible. The Arizona senator raised a respectable $238 million from donors, in addition to the $84 million federal grant he received for participating in the public financing system. In all, McCain had almost $50 million more to spend than George W. Bush did in 2004. Those were good overall numbers, but obviously not enough to complete with Obama's enormous fundraising prowess. |