57Matthew Woodget How to buy an election? Mitt Romney campaign raises $100m in June to beat Obama for second month. http://bit.ly/Rn1Pls
Mitt Romney campaign raises $100m in June to beat Obama for second month
Fundraising total was apparently leaked by campaign put on the defensive after supreme court healthcare ruling
Email- Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Follow @ewenmacaskill
- guardian.co.uk,
Mitt Romney raised $100m in June, confirming Barack Obama's fear expressed Thursday that he is going to be massively outspent in November's White House election.
The Romney campaign appears to have out-earned the Obama campaign for the second straight month. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/AP
The fundraising figure has not yet been published by the Federal Election Commission, which candidates have to provide with financial details each month, but was leaked to the Politico website.
The Obama campaign team is unlikely to match that $100m, making it the second month in a row that the president's team has ended up a poor second to Romney in terms of fundraising.
More ominously for Obama, conservative groups such as American Crossroads have been easily outstripping their Democratic equivalents. Figures for American Crossroads and other Super Pacs for June are due to be released shortly.
The leak to Politico was greeted by widespread speculation among reporters and analysts that it had been done deliberately by the Romney campaign to divert attention on a day of bad publicity.
The Romney campaign is being lambasted by both Democrats and conservative writers for its confused response to last week's supreme court healthcare decision. The campaign showed indecision, describing it on Monday as a "penalty", in line with the White House, but now describing it as a "tax", in line with other Republicans.
In an editorial on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, normally supportive of the Republicans, described the Romney's campaign team as looking "confused in addition to being politically dumb".
The $100m in fundraising is not a complete surprise. An Obama official last month predicted that Romney would hit that mark.
Obama, campaigning in Ohio on Thursday, expressed concern about the extent of spending in the election. "There has been more money flooding into the system than we've ever seen before," he said. "More negative ads, more cynicism."
Obama added: "From now until November, the other side is going to spend more money than we've ever seen before, and they will be raining ads down on your head."
