Campaign Fund-raising | featured news

Crossroads GPS, a conservative nonprofit group that is one of the most prominent critics of President Obama, raised nearly $77 million in its first 19 months from a small cadre of secret donors, including two dozen who wrote checks of $1 million and more.

In a talk with Florida donors, he singles out the Housing and Education departments but says he isn't ready to share specifics with voters. When President Obama told a Russian leader that he could be "more flexible" after the election — during what he thought was a private conversation — Mitt Romney came down like a hammer.

President Barack Obama raised a combined $53 million for his campaign, the Democratic Party and other campaign-related funds in March. He's preparing to face Mitt Romney and a rejuvenated GOP in the general election.

Amid a growing perception that Mitt Romney will be the party’s nominee, the biggest of the Republican “super PACs” is set to begin its first major anti-Obama advertising campaign.

Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee will start raising money together, as President Obama already does with Democrats.

A California Democratic activist is launching a super PAC that aims to draw together thousands of small donors.

The amount still lags behind what he collected at this point four years ago as he made his first bid for the White House.

President Obama is struggling to draw in big-dollar donations, with half as many people writing large checks to his campaign than at this point four years ago.

President Obama's re-election team is using bad polls to try to raise campaign cash. In a fundraising e-mail sent out last night, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina writes: "If the general election were held today, President Obama would lose to Mitt Romney -- according to the latest poll from Washington Post-ABC News."

Leaders of some of the new groups are taking advantage of the mammoth donations and the lack of oversight to write themselves big paychecks or hire their own companies. The Red White and Blue Fund, a "super PAC" backing the presidential bid of Republican Rick Santorum, paid more than half a million dollars last month to a newly formed direct mail firm.