The first quarter fundraising results are in and the first gold medal for the invisible primary goes to Mitt Romney! In fact, his PAC brings in more in the time period than Pawlenty’s, Palin’s and Huckabee’s respective PACs combined.

I have been curious to see how this quarter’s results would turn out since there were so many asterisks involved with last years results. Last year there were a number of factors that skewed the outcome (though Romney still led) that is just wasn’t possible to compare apples to apples. BUT this quarter, all the PAC’s are established and the playing field is level.

Without further ado, the results:

Note: my numbers do not show that Mitt’s PAC also raised an additional $157,000 from their affiliate state-based PACs of the same name. That puts Mitt’s actual total at $1.6 million. I’ll include that in my numbers next time around.

My analysis:

• Romney is far and away the leader in fundraising, but the others do have some limitations with their responsibilities for their respective jobs and public office. In any case I think Romney would still lead. An important reason to address this is that powerful fundraising will be vital in the general election.
• Not shown in the results is the fact that Romney brought in a HUGE $950,000 in March alone, boosting his quarter total. Two possible reasons for this boost could be his constant touring through the month on his book tour as well as his “Repeal the Bill” campaign. Though he has not had any official fundraisers (that I know of) in March, his public profile was raised substantially during the period which could have resulted in more contributions. In all he did 27 Official Book Tour events in March as well as dozens of media appearances and interviews.
• Romney disbursed far more than any candidate in the quarter, again due to his extremely busy travel schedule etc., for his book tour in March. He also has a much larger political organization to support. The good side to this is that if he decides to announce next year for office the transition will be easy because the team will be in place.
• Though Romney’s burn rate is the highest, he still has more cash on hand than the other PACs, and still took in more than was distributed for the overall period. That’s what the money is there for – to be used.
• Romney’s total contributions to other candidates for federal office is the highest – all of which was given in the month of May as part of his “Repeal the Bill” campaign.
• Pawlenty impresses me with his ability to out raise Palin and Huckabee, especially given their much higher name recognition.
• Palin’s PAC has announced that they will focus more on fundraising this quarter so look for better numbers from her next time around.
• Huckabee’s percentage of funds given to other candidates is noble, but he is still needs to find some way to boost his overall fundraising numbers. He may get lot done on little fundraising for the primaries, but that is not going to work for the general election, should he win the nomination. One can argue that it is not as necessary for him to raise funds now and he can do so when the primaries start, but the other candidates will his the ground running with their networks leaving Huckabee in a game of catch-up. The time to build those networks is now.

That’s it. Let me know what you think. For the analysis I did for last years numbers you can see the post I did on Feb. 5th by clicking here.

Good work Romney and congratulations to the Free and Strong America PAC!

~Nate Gunderson

Source(Full FEC filings): Romney , Pawlenty , Palin , Huckabee

UPDATE: The Free and Strong America Releases a list of federal candidates they supported financially this quarter. You can find the press release by clicking here.