Third Quarter for Presidential Fundraising Ends Sunday

On September 30 the third quarter for Presidential campaign fundraising comes to a close. Early estimates, and numbers leaked from campaigns, can be expected next week while the final totals and the contribution reports will not be available until October 15.

Historically fundraising totals for the third quarter are lower than previous two quarters. Much of this can be attributed to the August vacation season and the fact that the easily accessible donors have already contributed to the campaign of their choice.

Whatever the totals are, they will surely reveal information about the direction GOP campaigns. In the coming weeks totals will provide greater insight in to Mayor Giuliani’s frontrunner status, the stability of Senator McCain’s campaign and the traction of Senator Thompson’s campaign.

Candidates File with the FEC

All first quarter reports for the 2008 presidential race have been submitted to FEC. A true test of a campaign is often the measure of its cash on hand, rather than the actual amount of money raised in a given period.
In the first quarter, John McCain raised $13.1 million, yet ended with $4.7 million on hand-- spending at a rate of 61.4%, an extremely high rate.
Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani each ended the quarter with more than $10 million on hand and now have an advantage over McCain heading into the second quarter.

Click here to read a story on the reports from the Washington Times.

First Quarter Fundraising Numbers Released

The first quarter of the year closed on Saturday, March 31st. Though the official reports are not due to the FEC until April 15th, most campaigns have released their numbers. Here they are below in order of most funds raised.

Mitt Romney
•Raised $20.63 M in primary contributions
•Total receipts are $23M; includes $2.35M loan from Romney and a $20,000 transfer from his 1994 Senate campaign

Rudy Giuliani
•$15 M raised during the first quarter; $2 M raised prior to January 1, 2007
•$11 M cash on hand
•Stated most of these funds were for primary

John McCain
•Raised approximately $12.5M
•Last week he lowered expectations, which had reached as high as $30 M, saying he got a late start and doesn’t like raising money

Tom Tancredo
•His campaign will report about $1.3M raisedMike Huckabee
•Stated had met his goal of $500K for the Q and would report roughly $300K CoH

These numbers differ drastically from what all the polls show-- Giuliani has consistently come in first in all major polls, with McCain second and Romney trailing much further behind, often behind GOPers who have not even formed exploratory committees such as Fred Thompson.

The question remains, how will these fundraising tallies affect public opinion polls? Will we see a shift in the coming weeks?