Romney’s Fundraising Juggernaut Tops Obama’s for Third Straight Month (UPDATED)

Mitt Romney.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/seth/399340323/sizes/m/in/photostream/">sethrubenstein</a>

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The Mitt Romney money machine is showing no sign of slowing down.

Romney’s re-election effort raised north of nine figures for the second month in a row, raking in $101.3 million in July, his campaign announced Monday. That comes after raising $106 million in June, a blockbuster haul that topped the Obama campaign’s June fundraising by $35 million.

The Obama campaign, Obama Victory Fund, and Democratic National Committee said they’d together raised more than $75 million in July. That makes the third straight month in which the Romney campaign, Romney Victory Fund, and Republican National Committee outraised Obama and affiliated Democratic groups.

It’s still unlikely that Romney will raise more than Obama, despite the Obama campaign’s many emails suggesting otherwise. By the end of June, Obama and affiliated Democratic groups had raised $552 million to Romney and the GOP’s $394 million. The Sunlight Foundation’s Bill Allison noted that, at the current pace, Romney would have to beat Obama’s monthly fundraising total by an average of $39.5 million in July, August, September, and October to come out on top.

That’s not impossible. But the chances of Romney pulling that off are slim, especially as less-motivated Democratic donors who’ve stayed on the sidelines thus far notice tightening polls and finally crack open their checkbooks. What Romney can count on, though, is a sizeable advantage in GOP outside spending by super-PACs and secretive nonprofit groups—a difference that, on Election Day, could prove crucial.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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