WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama set a high bar for 2012 presidential campaign fundraising after reporting a haul of $46 million in his second quarter campaign finance filings released on Friday. The president's campaign is, yet again, relying on a mix of small-dollar donors and big-dollar bundlers to pay for a campaign that experts project will raise a total of close to $1 billion. Obama's closest competitor in the money race is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who raised $18 million in the second quarter.
Obama's campaign pulled in 47 percent of its contributions from donors giving less than $250, an indication that the president still has the support of the donor base that drove him to victory in 2008.
This doesn't mean that the Obama campaign is shunning big money. The campaign also relied on a stable of 244 bundlers, donors who collect checks to deliver to the campaign. Those bundlers delivered at least $37 million, according to campaign's report of the minimum amount each bundler produced. This total was for both the Obama campaign and the Obama Victory Fund, a joint fundraising vehicle, according to campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.
