Romney Raises $1.7 Million
Politico reports:
Mitt Romney’s political operation raised $1.7 million from July through September, again pacing the field of prospective 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls.
The former Massachusetts governor, who lost a bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and is widely believed to be preparing another run, has built a robust political operation including political action committees at the federal level and in five states with strategic significance in the pending battle for the Republican nomination: Iowa, New Hampshire, Alabama, South Carolina and Michigan.
The committees, which are all called Free and Strong America, pay for his staff, travel and contributions to like-minded candidates. According to figures provided Thursday by the Free and Strong America operation, which has a few more days to file formal reports detailing all the committees’ contributions and expenditures, the groups have raised a total of $5.1 million this year.
That’s more than the two next most actively fundraising prospective 2012 hopefuls — former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty — have raised in their political action committees this year combined.
Palin has pulled in more than $2.5 million this year into her group, Sarah PAC, including $1.2 million from July through September, while Pawlenty has raised nearly $2.1 million through his federal committee and a pair of state committees, which are all called Freedom First PAC, including $778,000 in the third quarter.
Though the stated purposes of PACs like those maintained by Romney, Pawlenty, Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are to boost other candidates through contributions and appearances on their behalf, it’s become common for prospective presidential candidates to use such committees to pay for political staffs and travel before formally declaring their own candidacies — as well as to collect chits by contributing to potential allies.
Romney’s PACs donated a total of $532,000 in the third quarter — nearly twice the combined amount that Pawlenty’s and Palin’s PACs contributed — including maximum donations of $5,000 to GOP Senate candidates Dino Rossi of Washington, Ken Buck of Colorado and John Boozman of Arkansas.
At the end of September, the PACs had a combined total of $1.9 million in the bank.
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