FEC Reports Give Insight into Campaign

            Financial reports from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) have been released and give important information on how much money Republican and Democrat candidates have been fundraising as well as spending in the third quarter. The reports outline the financial details from primarily over the summer. The reports deliver insight into the campaign by outlining which candidates accumulated the most money or spent the most money on the campaign trail thus far.

            The FEC reports revealed the candidates that were able to raise the most money through donations and fundraising thus far. The top Republican candidate to achieve this was former Governor Mitt Romney. In the third quarter the Romney campaign raised about $14.2 million making his total $32million raised for the 2012 Presidential Election. Although this is a significant and impressive amount of money raised for the campaign, it still does not surpass the amount of money in the Obama campaign. Merely in the last three months the Obama campaign has raised $42 million making the total $61 million. Such figures from the Obama campaign dwarf the numbers that came from the top GOP contenders. The reason the substantial amount of money President Obama has raised is due to the fact that he has no opponent. As a result the Democratic Party only has one candidate or choice to give donations to. 

President Barack Obama, source: Google Images

              Romney and Obama do not just have exceptional fundraising abilities in common. Another similarity is where these candidates raise a portion of their money; wall street. Although as a result of the FEC reports, it seems that Romney has beat Obama in terms of amount donated from Wall Street firms and employees. Over the past three months, as outlined in the financial reports, Romney has raised $1.5 million from employees of Wall Street firms like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs while Obama has only been able to receive $270,000 from similar outlets. Goldman Sachs is an interesting aspect of this story because in 2008 during Obama’s run in the Presidential Election, the firm’s employees donated $1 million while this year they donated a mere $45,000. The reports note that Romney was donated $350,000. It seems that Wall Street employees and firms are turning away from the Democratic nominee and throwing their support behind Romney, hoping to receive the support back if he makes it to office.

            FEC reports show that the other Republican contender to raise a substantial amount of money for his campaign is Rick Perry who in the third quarter raised $17 million and has $15 million in the bank. Other candidates like Herman Cain raised $2.8 million with $1.3 million on hand. Representative Ron Paul also has been able to raise $8 million with $3.6 million in the bank by September.

            For some candidates, the ability to raise substantial amounts of money has been a struggle. Some candidates have even found themselves in debt after spending more money on the campaign than they were receiving in donations. Newt Gingrich, for example, was only able to raise $807,962.45 during the third quarter while spending $776,767.90 on the campaign. Consequently this put the Gingrich campaign in debt for $1.1 million with $$353,416.71 in the bank.  It is reported that Gingrich spent the largest amount of money on website development and telemarketing, $127,000 and $107,701 respectively. In a similar situation is former Senator Rick Santorum. In the third quarter, Santorum is believed to have raised $700,000 while spending $750,000. This put his campaign $70,000 in debt with $190,000 in the bank. Jon Huntsman Jr. has only $327,000 left in his campaign account with more than twice that in debt.

GOP Candidate Herman Cain, source: Google Images

          With the handling of such large amounts of money it would be interesting where and what the candidates use their donations for. One of the uses of the FEC reports is to examine and review such issues. For example Rick Perry has spent $2 million since his entry into the race in mid-August. The ways in which Perry spent this money are $460,000 on travel, $103,000 on consultants and $46,320 on printing and direct mail solicitations.

            The release of the FEC reports give a clear indication about which candidates seem the strongest and can last the longest as the campaign rages on into the winter. There seems to be a large gap between GOP candidates. While a few are exceeding estimated donation sums, others are falling into debt. Such candidates will quickly realize how difficult it will be to participate in the Presidential Election without a large bank account and people willing to give donations. 

Sources: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/us/romney-perry-and-cain-open-wide-financial-lead-over-field.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=politics
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/gingrich-raises-807k-spends-almost-same-amount-in-3rd-quarter/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/romney-raises-142-million-in-third-quarter/2011/10/14/gIQA23GfjL_blog.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44914805/ns/politics-decision_2012/#.Tps1ubKLMse