Via Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney:
President Obama has fooled plenty of people into thinking Mitt Romney is beating him in the race for campaign cash. This allows Obama to pose as a scrappy underdog and man of the people even as he raises and spends more money than his opponent. It’s quite a trick, supported by three money machines:
First, Obama’s campaign has outraised and outspent Romney’s campaign.
Second, the Democratic National Committee outraised and outspent the Republican National Committee.
Third, outside groups explicitly taking Obama’s side — super-PACs, 527s and PACs — have spent more than the outside groups on Romney’s side.
Obama would have everyone believe otherwise. “We’re getting outraised,” Obama wrote in a typical fundraising email this week. This is only true if you concentrate solely on the month of June, when Romney’s $105 million beat Obama’s $71 million.
Obama’s campaign has raised $326 million to Romney’s $227 million, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission and the campaign’s own reports of its June fundraising. That’s a 44 percent lead for Obama.
“I will be the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign,” Obama wrote in a similar late-June fundraising appeal, specifying, “I’m talking about the Romney campaign itself.”
But Obama actually leads Romney in spending by more than 40 percent, according to the latest data — about $148 million to $104 million (this does not include June spending, which has not yet been reported). And Obama’s margin is understated because much of Romney’s spending was fighting off GOP primary rivals. Money spent attacking Newt Gingrich doesn’t help Romney beat Obama.