Clinton raises $22 million, besting Obama

Jim Kuhnhenn

WASHINGTON — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $22 million this summer for her presidential primary campaign, outpacing all other candidates so far with her best three-month showing of the year.

Clinton raised a total of $27 million in the quarter, her campaign said Tuesday, but $5 million is designated for the general election and can’t be used in her quest for the Democratic nomination. For the first time, she reported attracting more new donors in a quarter than her chief fundraising rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Her $80 million fundraising total for the 2008 presidential race puts her on a par with Obama, though he still leads Clinton in money raised for the primaries alone.

Clinton leads other Democrats in national opinion polls, three months before the first primaries.

Obama reported raising at least $19 million from July through September for the primaries and about $20 million overall for the quarter, counting general election money. He has raised a total of $75 million for the primary season and about $4 million for the general election next year.

Clinton’s summer donations bring her total primary dollars raised this year to $62 million. The New York senator has raised $17.6 million for the general election.

She also supplemented her primary fundraising earlier this year with a $10 million transfer from her 2006 Senate campaign.

With their third-quarter numbers, Obama and Clinton sit atop the Democratic field in fundraising, comfortably ahead of their nearest rival, John Edwards, who raised $7 million in the past three months for a total of $30 million for the year.

The Obama and Clinton campaigns did not report how much money they have on hand, totals that would signal how well-positioned they are to compete against each other in the months ahead. While Clinton leads in national polls, she, Obama and Edwards are clustered closely in polls of Iowa voters. Iowa is scheduled to hold the first contest of the 2008 presidential season with its caucuses in January.

This was the first quarter that Clinton has raised more primary money than Obama, who has given her an unexpectedly tight competition in the money race.

“This is the moment when you showed that America is ready for change and that you are ready to make history,” campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle said on the campaign’s Web site in a message to supporters. “This is the moment when your dedication defied the skeptics. The early primaries and caucuses are coming up fast. We’re going to need your help a lot in the next few months.”

The Clinton campaign said her third-quarter contributions included money from 100,000 new donors, surpassing the 93,000 the Obama campaign said it attracted during the summer. Overall, the Obama campaign has said it has attracted 350,000 donors.

“More than 350,000 Americans have already signaled the kind of change they want in Washington by contributing to the Obama campaign,” spokesman Bill Burton said. “We have raised a historic $74.9 million in dollars available for primary spending, without transferring one cent from any other campaign fund and with no money from federal lobbyists or [political action committees].”

Clinton, whose campaign had appeared focused on big-dollar donors in earlier quarters, expanded her reach to smaller contributors over the summer. Her campaign held 20 low-dollar fundraisers during the quarter, including one Sunday in Oakland, Calif., that the campaign said drew 14,000 people. Author John Grisham held a similar event in Virginia last week.
Clinton and Obama have helped push the Democratic field into record levels of fundraising for a presidential campaign.

(Associated Press)