Saturday Politics: Obama $1.123B Romney $1.019B

The accounting continues on the monies raised and spent during the 2012 elections but the results for the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are in and the Democratic incumbent out-raised his Republican challenger by just over one hundred million dollars, with both candidates breaking the billion-dollar barrier. The Blue Team (Obama-Biden campaign and other Democratic committees) raised $1.123 billion while the Red Team (Romney-Ryan campaign and Republican committees) raised $1.019 billion.

However, Obama also out-raised Romney individually, $730 million to $473 million. Obama's total for his 2012 presidential campaign was $20 below his total for his 2008 campaign, but his haul of $1.4 billion for his two presidential races makes him the most prodigious fundraiser in presidential politics ever.

The Huffington Post summarizes:

The president's campaign, Obama for America, filed its final campaign finance report on Thursday covering the last two and a half weeks of the 2012 election. The report revealed that from Oct. 18 until the Election Day on Nov. 6 the president raised $88 million and spent $176 million. That far exceeded the $66 million raised by his rival Mitt Romney and the $107 million spent by the Republican presidential nominee during the same period.

In fact, the Obama campaign's fundraising power allowed it to crush the Romney camp in spending -- at least in terms of individual campaign spending. Obama's campaign spent $723 million from April 4 up to Election Day, way ahead of the total $460 million spent by Romney's campaign. Half of the Obama campaign's spending between Oct. 18 and the election -- $83 million -- went just to television advertising.

[...]

When including the types of spending that the Obama campaign warned about in its emails, such as super PACs and other outside groups, the Republicans did outspend Democrats. The full suite of Romney committees including the Republican National Committee and Romney Victory along with various outside groups spent a combined $1.51 billion. Democratic outside groups and the full Obama group of committees including the Democratic National Committee and Obama Victory Fund spent $1.43 billion. Still, the gap is far smaller than the one the Obama camp warned supporters about.