Washington: Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last month collected almost $77 million for his campaign, some $17 million more than President Barack Obama.
The Republican National Committee announced the fundraising figures on its Twitter account Thursday, just a few hours after the Democrats had done the same.
The Romney campaign also announced in a communique that it currently has at its disposal a sum of $107 million, but the Obama team has not revealed the size of its war chest.
Romney last month collected almost $77 million for his campaign, some $17 million more than Obama.
The Democrats said that the average donation they received in May was $54.94 and emphasised the increase in donations last month over the $43.6 million they collected in April.
The framework for donations to Obama is the same one that worked so well for him in 2008: contributions no larger than $100 made by a huge number of people.
May was the first month for which the collection figures of the two candidates could really be meaningfully compared, given that Romney only secured the Republican nomination in April.
According to the RealClearPolitics website, which prepares an average of the main opinion surveys, with five months remaining until the US presidential election Obama is leading Romney by 47.7 percent to 44.7 percent.
Obama campaign questions Romney’s personal finances
Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign officials have questioned about the personal finances of Romney after he said that his personal trusts holding his investments aren’t truly blind under federal ethics law.
“It’s been obvious for some time and has been reported that Governor Romney is not operating with a federally qualified blind trust. That certainly has been obvious,” Obama campaign general counsel Robert Bauer told reporters.
“Yesterday, he took the position that was in fact the case he acknowledged that, but he also said that he wasn’t prepared to make any changes until, and if, he became US President,” he said referring to the admission made by Romney.
He said that raises a set of questions because function of a blind trust was to protect against conflicts of interest.
“If an officeholder doesn’t want to desist himself or herself from holding to prevent a conflict of interest, then the alternative was to have a true blind trust with rigorous standards that you find under federal law,” Bauer said.
The campaign official said that it raises a host of questions of why it was that he wouldn’t abide by the more rigorous standards and address the question of conflict of interest since we know that he has far-flung investment interests offshore in foreign companies.
“On one of the most critical elements of a blind trust, that is the identity of the trustee, he has chosen a new, sort of independent fiduciary that the law called for. He has used his long time personal attorney,” he said.
Agencies
