WASHINGTON -- After dominating the fundraising
race for much of the summer, Republican presidential candidate Mitt
Romney started the fall campaign sprint with a little more than $50
million available to spend and a large loan to repay, campaign-finance
reports filed Thursday show.
Romney raised
nearly $67 million in August and spent nearly as much, according to his
filings with the Federal Election commission.
President
Obama spent even more, burning through nearly all of the $84.8 million
he raised in August, but he ended the month with nearly $89 million in
cash reserves. Overall, Obama and the Democratic Party raised about $114
million in August, edging past the $111.6 million haul by Romney and
the Republican Party.
Campaign-finance law
barred Romney from tapping general-election money until he was nominated
by Republicans at the party's national convention late last month,
even as Obama spent heavily on advertising to advance his re-election.
To
boost his cash flow, Romney received a $20 million bank loan on Aug.
22, just days before the start of the Republican National Convention.
His filings show he still owed $15 million to the Bank of Georgetown at
the end of August, but aides say his campaign paid down that amount in
September.
Obama's spending allowed him to
dominate the airwaves in key states, running scathing ads attacking
Romney's tenure at the private-equity firm Bain Capital. In August
alone, he spent more than $68 million on television commercials, online
ads and other media expenses, nearly twice Romney's spending on media, a
USA TODAY analysis shows.
"Obama has had more
control of his message than the Romney campaign has," said Anthony
Corrado, a campaign-finance expert at Colby College in Maine. "He's been
better able to define Romney."
In the
battleground state of Ohio, for instance, Obama has spent more than $40
million on ads since May 1-- nearly twice the amount Romney has devoted
to commercials there, according a tally by the National Journal. No
Republican has won the presidency without carrying Ohio.
Outside
conservative groups have helped to close the ad gap. Restore Our
Future, a pro-Romney super PAC that collected $7 million in August, said
it spent more than $20 million on advertising last month.
Super
PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money to aid their favorite
candidates but are barred from coordinating their spending directly with
candidates.
The advertising from conservative
groups has focused less on making the case for a Romney presidency and
more on attacking Obama's record, said Travis Ridout, a political
science professor at Washington State University who tracks political
advertising.
"The trouble for Romney is that
it seems like he still needs to define himself, something that should
have been done long before now," he said.
Reports
filed Thursday show Romney slowly building his staff. His campaign had
403 people on the payroll in August, up from 326 a month earlier. Obama
employed 900 people last month.
Restore Our
Future, the pro-Romney super PAC, collected two $1 million contributions
in August. Robert Parsons of Scottsdale, Ariz., the CEO of Go Daddy, a
company that hosts websites, gave $1 million. Another $1 million came
from OdysseyRe Holdings, a Connecticut-based company that underwrites
reinsurance and insurance coverage.
Priorities
USA Action, a super PAC aiding Obama, collected $10 million in August,
marking its best month. Top donors included hedge fund billionaire James
Simons at $2 million, and Texas trial lawyer Steve Mostyn and media
mogul Anne Cox Chambers, who gave $1 million each.
USA Today