Clinton Camp Trumpets Fundraising Lead

Hillary Clinton solidified her status as the front runner for the Democratic nomination yesterday, surpassing all her rivals in fund raising to bring in $27m (£13m) for her campaign in the past three months.

The quarterly announcement of fund raising totals puts the senator from New York ahead of Barack Obama, who had previously held an advantage in fund raising even while trailing Ms Clinton in the opinion polls. Mr Obama took in $20m.

In an triumphant email to supporters, the Clinton campaign depicted the inflow of funds as a return on the candidate's strong performance in televised debates and on the hustings. "This is the moment when you showed that America is ready for change and that you are ready to make history. This is the moment when your dedication defied the skeptics." The strong showing for Ms Clinton defied predictions that Mr Obama would outperform her on fund raising as he did in the second quarter. The Obama campaign has been touting its army of small donors as the secret to its fund raising prowess. The campaign reported bringing in 93,000 new contributors in the past three months.

The cash haul for Ms Clinton also belies her campaign's recent troubles with fund raising. The campaign last month was forced to return some $850,000 that had been raised by a donor facing prosecution in an unrelated fraud case.

Yesterday's figures plus the most recent ones from The Center for Responsive Politics, an independent think tank which tracks election finance, put Ms Clinton's overall takings for the primary season at about $90m, which includes $10m left over from her 2006 Senate re-election campaign. On the same basis Mr Obama has raised about $79m.

However, all the Democratic candidates have benefited from the far greater enthusiasm for the party's prospects in the 2008 race than among Republican supporters.

Even the Republican frontrunner's, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, are believed to have raised less than half of what Ms Clinton took in, or about $10m. The party's hot new prospect, Fred Thompson, also took in a comparatively low $8m in his first full quarter of fund raising. The Arizona senator, John McCain, took in $5m.

Those takings put the Republican frontrunner's on a par with trailing Democratic candidates such as John Edwards, the vice-presidential contender in 2004, who brought in $7m, and Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico ($5.2m).