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Obama raises record $55m
07/03/2008 08:18 - (SA)
Washington - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Thursday reported raising $55m in February, the highest ever amount of campaign donations recorded for a single month and $20m more than was reported last week by rival Hillary Clinton.
Obama's campaign said $45m were raised online, and more than 90% were donations of $100 or less. More than 1 million people have given money to date, the campaign said.
Obama won 11 straight contests during the money-raising month of February, but his momentum was stopped Tuesday when Clinton took three of four state primaries, including crucial contests in Ohio and Texas.
The two candidates are separated by only about 100 delegates, with some 3 000 already awarded in the series of state-by-state intra- party contests that have been running since early January.
Both Democratic candidates have consistently out-raised their Republican rivals since the race began in early 2007. John McCain, who captured the Republican nomination on Tuesday, reported raising only $12m in the month of February.
But while Senator McCain will now be able to focus exclusively on raising money and uniting the Republican Party, Senators Clinton and Obama will likely be spending at least the next month-and-a-half using precious funds on each other.
The Democratic nomination contest next moves to Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi on Tuesday, before the delegate-rich state of Pennsylvania votes April 22.
A poll published on Thursday showed both Democrats would beat McCain in a general election match-up. The Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Clinton with a 6 percentage point lead over McCain and Obama with a 12 percentage point lead. ? Sapa-dpa
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