Obama Raises Record $86M In First 3 Months

President Barack Obama raised a record amount of cash in the first 3 months of his 2012 re-election effort: $86.7 million.

The Washington Post's The Fix reported:

Obama’s re-election campaign collected $47 million, while the president raised another $38 million for the DNC via a joint fundraising committee that allows donors to write a single check that is then divvied up between the two entitites.

The haul far surpasses the goal [Campaign Manager] Messina set for the campaign’s national finance committee of collecting a combined $60 million between April 1 and June 30.

[...]

Obama’s total is more than the $35 million raised this past quarter by all the Republican presidential candidates combined (although Minnesota Rep.Michele Bachmann has not yet reported her fundraising). The GOP is lagging in fundraising, a problem made more acute by Obama’s success. By this point in 2007, 10 GOP presidential hopefuls had collectively raised more than $118 million. Obama had raised $58.9 million over two quarters.

This is excellent news, but it's probably going to take a billion dollars to re-elect the president if, as predicted, unemployment is well above 8.5% on election day 2012.