Clinton's Fundraising Shortfall

Hillary Clinton appears to have been pipped at the post by her main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, in the first round of their struggle - raising cash to pay for the primary campaign.

The New York senator, who has been seen as the Democratic frontrunner but who has been feeling the heat of Mr Obama's challenge, declared last night that in the first three months of the year she had raised $26m (£13m) from her fundraising drives across the country.

That is likely to be slightly more than Mr Obama is expected to declare to the Federal Election Commission by the deadline of midnight local time last night. Earlier this month he reported raising $23.5m.

But Mrs Clinton is hampered by the fact that out of her takings she has had to spend $5m on the costs of her fundraising, a chunk expected to be greater than the money spent by Mr Obama. She has also had to set aside $6.9m, which was donated specifically for a general presidential campaign and under electoral rules will only be allowed to be spent should she win the Democratic nomination.

In those circumstances, her headline figures only look good with a tranche of $10m held over from her campaign to win a second Senate term last November.

Substantially behind the two frontrunners is John Edwards, who said he had raised $13m for the primary.

In declarations among Republican candidates, the troubles John McCain has suffered to his campaign for nomination in recent years were reflected in disappointing returns. After the money he needed to spend to raise donations is deducted, he ended up with only about half the disposable funds to take forward to the next stage of the campaign as his two main rivals, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

Mr Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, showed well with about $21m raised, to the former mayor of New York's $14m. After deductions they had similar amounts left of more than $10m. Mr McCain, a senator from Arizona ended up with $5.2m, and $1.8m in debts.