Rudy, Romney each have about $11M

aprile 16, 2007 in Candidates, Financing

Despite Mitt Romney’s early fundraising lead among his GOP rivals, the former Massachusetts governor and Rudy Giuliani each reported Friday nearly equal amounts of cash available to spend for the presidential primaries. Romney said he has nearly $11.9 million available. Giuliani has nearly $11 million in cash, according to his first-quarter campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission. (USA Today)
That means Romney is spending campaign cash at a faster rate than Giuliani. Romney raised about $21 million for the primary race in the first three months of the year and Giuliani came in second among Republicans with $14.8 million. Arizona Sen. John McCain previously reported raising $12.5 million, but has not released details about his available cash or filed his report to the FEC. Fundraising reports are due to the FEC by midnight Sunday. Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Fordham University, warned against reading too much into fundraising and spending numbers at this stage of a presidential campaign.

“Trying to project who will win the campaign or the nominations from the early fundraising totals is unwise,” he said. “What’s more important is the degree to which these numbers will be sustained” in the months ahead. Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said the spending was aimed at “building a national campaign infrastructure” that includes full-time staff in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire and at least four other early primary states. The Romney campaign also spent $1.7 million on advertising, Madden said. “We’re not as well known as Rudy Giuliani,” he said. “A lot of the candidates in this race can sit back on their universal name ID.”

More than 75% of what Giuliani raised in the first quarter came from 36 fundraising events in March, according to his FEC report. Giuliani’s campaign predicts growing momentum. “Our biggest challenge is catching up our organization to the popularity of Rudy,” said Roy Bailey, the campaign’s finance chairman. Campaign manager Mike DuHaime predicted “a March-like (fundraising) pace going forward.” In addition to his fundraising, Giuliani also transferred $1.85 million leftover from his brief 2000 bid for the U.S. Senate.

Many of the candidates in both parties released preliminary fundraising numbers shortly after the first quarter ended March 31. The top six presidential fundraisers so far have raised about $127 milllion, or four times more than was raised for the same period in 2003.

Other details from campaign finance reports filed with the FEC:

Number of donors: Romney received money from more than 32,000 individual contributors, compared to 28,300 for Giuliani.

Spending: Romney spent about $11.6 million in the first three months of the year to build his campaign infrastructure and boost his name recognition outside of Massachusetts and Utah, where he is best known. Giuliani spent $5.7 million, and has $89,000 in campaign debt.

Top states: Giuliani’s home state of New York was the source of more than $3 million, his reports show. His other top sources of campaign donations were California and Texas. All three states are typically large sources of campaign cash.

Romney said he collected the most from donors in California, Utah and Massachusetts. Romney ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and has talked openly of courting fellow Mormons in Utah and other states.

Famous donors: Giuliani, a New York Yankees fan, received $4,600 on March 23 from the baseball club’s owner, George Steinbrenner. That is the maximum an individual can donate. Giuliani also received $2,100 from actor Adam Sandler and $2,300 from designer Vera Wang, who created the dress that Giuliani’s wife, Judith, wore at their 2003 wedding.

Romney tapped a network of business leaders in the investment banking community, where he worked before going into politics. Fellow Mormons Jon Huntsman, the father of Utah’s governor, and members of the Marriott family, founders of the hotel chain, each gave $2,300. Former Boston Celtics star and now team executive Danny Ainge and his wife, Michelle, gave $4,600.

Romney also had support from fellow governors, including $2,100 from his New England neighbor and fellow Republican, Gov. Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island.