Romney outraised Obama in July

WASHINGTON -- If there was one certainty about this year's presidential campaign, it was that President Barack Obama's fundraising juggernaut could not be beat.

But the razor-tightness of the 2012 campaign is now evident not only in the polls, but also in the money race, in which GOP challenger Mitt Romney is rapidly gaining on Obama.

In July, Romney and the Republican National Committee outraised Obama and his Democratic allies $101 million to $75 million -- the third month in a row that the former Massachusetts governor has beaten the Democratic incumbent. In those months, he brought in $79 million more than Obama.

Obama, who amassed a war chest while Romney was duking it out in a tough primary fight earlier in the year, still has raised more: nearly $627 million compared with the $535 million raised by Romney and his GOP allies, according to data from the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute and new figures released Mondayby the two campaigns.

But as of the end of June, Romney and his party allies had nearly $23 million more on hand than the president's re-election effort. The Obama campaign has already spent tens of millions on TV ads and a sophisticated ground operation to drive the vote in November.

Since the 2012 race began, Obama campaign officials have privately predicted that he would collect more than the $745 million he raised in his record-setting 2008 campaign, a goal that appears well within reach. Indeed, at the current pace, his re-election effort will bring in around $850 million.

But it now appears that Romney will also be flush with cash in the fall -- a dramatically different scenario than Obama faced four years ago, when he vastly outspent then-GOP presidential nominee John McCain. Unlike Obama, McCain accepted public financing, which capped how much he could spend.

The impact of the escalating money race is unclear. With voters already deluged by political ads, additional money pumped into TV spots could see diminishing returns. But a financial advantage could allow Romney to expand his on-the-ground campaign into new states.

Top Obama fundraisers said the campaign is hitting its fundraising goals and will have enough to execute its strategy. They attribute Romney's recent fundraising advantage to the fact that he was only able to begin raising large donations jointly with the Republican National Committee in the spring, once he became the likely nominee.