Mitt Romney: His super PAC burn rate soared in January
Mitt Romney had the biggest super PAC donations, and was the biggest spender. Can Rick Santorum's super PAC keep pace in Michigan and Arizona?
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at a town hall meeting in Shelby Township, Mich., Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012.
(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Washington
There鈥檚 plenty of buzz about campaign fund-raising, as a Federal Election Commission deadline Monday night brought forth a trove of data from the campaigns about their January spending.听
What do you need to know about the state of the campaign money game? Here are five things to note.
1. Show me the money - by state.
MapLight put together showing that two out of every three dollars raised by super PACs - the groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money for presidential candidates without coordinating with said candidates - have come from just four states and Washington, D.C. Mitt Romney has raised the most super PAC cash in each of those locations, but you can slice and dice the numbers for yourself .
2. How much mud would a super PAC chuck if a super PAC could chuck mud?
Answer: A lot more than last time around, that鈥檚 for sure. In the last GOP presidential tilt, just six percent of campaign advertising was an attack on other candidates, the . During this campaign cycle, that number has shot up to more than 50 percent. Nearly three quarters of super PAC ads have been negative compared with 27 percent of ads from the campaigns themselves.
3. How do the GOP candidates compare to each other?
See this super helpful for the numeric breakdown, but here are DCDecoder鈥檚 takeaways. Mitt Romney had the biggest fund-raising haul of the Republican bunch - but he put $6.5 million in the tank versus $4.5 million to $5.5 million for each of his rivals.听
What鈥檚 really amazing is how much Mitt Romney spent - $18.78 million. The New York Times鈥� Nate Silver thinks Romney鈥檚 鈥渂urn rate鈥� - fund-raising minus spending - of negative $12.2 million . Rick Santorum saw his cash on hand grow by about $1 million while Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich had losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Romney鈥檚 burn rate looks even worse when you add in the net negative $7 million hit his super PAC took in January. Still, his $24 million in cash between the super PAC and his campaign dwarf the other candidates鈥� combined holdings.
Which would be great, except that Rick Santorum is breathing down his neck in two states that everybody thought were Romney shoo-ins - Arizona and Michigan.
4. How do the GOP candidates compare to Barack Obama?
The longer the GOP primary goes, the bigger Obama鈥檚 cash advantage grows.
As Tuesday's points out, the four GOP candidates have $13 million in cash - combined. President Obama has nearly six times that amount at $76 million. While the President鈥檚 super PAC had a dreadful month of under $100,000 raised, and so that number is almost certainly to rise - it can鈥檛 go down much farther.
Obama actually had a negative burn rate during the month of around $6 million. However, the president is getting to invest in staff, technology, and organization more than television advertisements. It鈥檚 not as if the GOP candidates aren鈥檛 getting to do this, but the emphasis is different - and likely offers a better springboard to the general election.
5. What鈥檚 next on the fund-raising trail?
After Santorum鈥檚 mid-January sweep of Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, DCDecoder wrote that he鈥檇 have to up his fund-raising game. He has. The next two weeks, however, will move at warp speed. First up are the Arizona and Michigan primaries, followed shortly thereafter by Washington and then the explosion of delegates available on 鈥淪uper Tuesday,鈥� March 6.
With Newt Gingrich backer Sheldon Adelson promising another , Ron Paul steady as ever and Santorum showing he can put money in the bank, its putting campaign treasure to its best use that will be at a premium before the next set of campaign disclosures appears.
鈥� David Grant /
Watch the top Republican candidates face off in the CNN Republican Presidential debate live from Arizona! Wednesday night at 8 ET on CNN (Sponsored message).
Like your politics unscrambled? Go to