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Virginia House Delays Vote on GOP Uterus Inspection Bill (Again)

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Kragar2/21/2012 5:57:45 pm PST

re: #153 Targetpractice

So he’s burned through most of his warchest already and still getting his ass handed to him? The Great Romney Deathstar is running out of juice?


Two Charts That Should Make Romney Gulp

As you can see, Romney is the clear anomaly by a long shot, raising nearly 90 percent of his total haul from larger contributions. By contrast, only around 40% of Obama’s donations are from individuals who have given more than $200 total and his smaller contributors alone raised more money in total than Romney’s entire fundraising operation. For the rest of the Republican field, the ratio is somewhere closer to 50-50 — take a look at the total small donor cash for Gingrich and Paul, for example, and you see that their huge disadvantage versus Romney is almost entirely due to the frontrunner’s bigger contributors.

“What it shows is that [Romney] does not have a broad base of support among small donors, who are motivated to give small amounts to the campaign,” campaign finance expert and UC-Irvine professor Richard Hasen told TPM.

But the real worry for Romney is maxed out donors, who have given the $2,500 limit to his primary run and can no longer legally contribute. The chart below shows what percentage of each candidate’s total cash as of the start of 2012 came from top dollar donations.

Once again, Romney stands out big time, with 67% of his overall money derived from max donors. And after turning in a weaker than expected $6.5 million haul for January while burning through $18.8 million in expenses, wealthy backers tapping out may be a real problem. Hillary Clinton experienced similar troubles right around the same time in her presidential run, forcing her to donate $5 million of her own money in February 2008. At the start of that year, 56% of Clinton’s campaign donations came from max contributors vs. 40% for President Obama, who was running rings around her with under-$200 donors.