With the passing of the deadline for reporting second quarter fundraising, the presidential campaigns have been putting the spin on how they’ve done. Today the Giuliani campaign held a blogger conference call to discuss the results–without much need to spin, it seems. Campaign Manager Mike DuHaime pointed out that the Mayor has raised $33 million overall, with $17 million of that coming in the quarter just concluded. They have $18 million in cash on hand, with no debt. The Giuliani team spent just over $11 million in the quarter. DuHaime was happy to note the Giuliani lead both in money and at the polls. He said that the Mayor was now operating in a dozen states (which he declined to name) and was unique in his ability to compete for New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oregon, Washington–among Republicans, anyway. DuHaime also believes that Giuliani would force a Democratic opponent to fight for other traditional blue states, such as New York, California, and Illinois. He also asserted that in June, Mayor Giuliani held an average lead of 7 points over his next closest challenger–the undeclared Fred Thompson. During the Q&A session, DuHaime declined to address the fundraising of other candidates–notably John McCain. He characterized the mayor’s relatively narrow donor base (about 60,000 contributors to date) as a great opportunity for growth, and (in response to my question) said that while the Democratic candidates may be raising much more money overall than their GOP counterparts, that does not mean anything for the race. He said the two primaries should be viewed separately, and that the mayor would have more than enough money to win both the primary and the general election. Read also Soren (who sees bad news for Mitt Romney in both fundraising and the grassroots), Geraghty, Ian Schwarz, and Captain Ed for more on the call.
