Both Obama and Romney declined public financing for their campaigns. | AP and stock photos Obama, Romney both topped $1B

Obama: $1.123 billion vs. Romney: $1.019 billion.

That’s the final fundraising tally in the most expensive presidential election ever, according to reports filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission by the rival campaigns and party committees.


And that doesn’t include an explosion of late advertising funded by last -minute checks from mega-donors like Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson and Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner, whose emergence as political forces may be the enduring legacy of 2012.

( Also on POLITICO: Adelson gave another $10M to Romney super PAC)

Adelson and his wife gave $39.7 million to GOP-allied super PACs in the campaign’s final weeks to bring their total disclosed contributions to almost $90 million, while Eychaner gave $2 million, bringing his total to $14 million.

Thursday’s filings lay bare those donations and other jaw-dropping financial details of the first modern presidential campaign in which donors could give unlimited contributions for political ads and in which both major party candidates declined to participate in a Watergate-era public financing system designed to limit fundraising. The reports also show how the two candidates and their allies navigated the new big-money system using divergent strategies until the bitter end.

( PHOTOS: 2012 mega-donors)

President Barack Obama’s campaign relied on smaller donors to fuel a robust ground game and summer advertising seeking to define Republican rival Mitt Romney, and then widened its fundraising advantage as the campaign reached its apex. But it was actually outspent by Romney and the big-donor-funded outside groups that supported him. They banked on larger donations to flood the airwaves in the final weeks to turn late-deciding voters against the incumbent in a backloaded strategy that left them with money in the bank at the end – typically a no-no in presidential politics.

Between Oct. 18 and Nov. 26, the period covered by Thursday’s filings, Obama’s campaign, combined with a trio of Democratic Party committees devoted to it (the Democratic National Committee and the joint DNC-Obama campaign committees called Obama Victory Fund 2012 and Swing State Victory Fund), raised $111 million, compared to $100 million raised by Romney’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and the joint RNC-Romney campaign Romney Victory.

POLITICO’s overall fundraising comparison is derived from the totals raised by those committees since the start of 2011.

( Also on POLITICO: Liberal donors gave at 11th hour)

But in the final weeks, Romney’s committees outspent Obama’s $292 million to $258 million, according to the reports. And Romney’s spending advantage widened to $337 million to $279 million when taking into consideration the super PACs devoted to the rivals, the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action and the pro-Romney Restore Our Future. Overall, Restore Our Future outraised Priorities $154 million to $79 million.

Super PACs like those, as well as secretive nonprofit groups – both spurred by the 2010 Citizens United decision and other federal court rulings – allowed extremely wealthy activists to play in presidential and congressional politics like never before.

And, while liberals rallied late in the cycle to super PACs supporting Obama and his Democratic congressional allies, conservatives led the way with this new type of campaign cash.

The unrivaled champion was Adelson. He and wife Miriam wrote a host of big checks in the campaigns closing weeks, including $23 million to the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads super PAC and $ 10 million to Restore Our Future, bringing their total to that group to $30 million. They also gave tens of millions of dollars more to nonprofit groups that don’t disclose their donors.

Other seven-figure checks that showed up in Thursday’s filing by Restore Our Future included $1 million from Houston Texans honcho Robert McNair, whose has previously supported the Texas Conservatives Fund and pro-Rick Perry Make Us Great Again super PACs.

Obama, who initially opposed super PACs, eventually came to bless one devoted to him called Priorities USA Action. And the latest figures highlighted the continued emergence of a new class of Democratic super PAC donors.

Eychaner, an Obama bundler, in the final weeks donated $1 million to Priorities (raising to $4 million his total giving to it), and $500,000 apiece to the super PACs devoted to Democratic Senate and House candidates, Majority PAC and House Majority PAC, respectively (to which he’s now given a combined total of $8.3 million).

Hedge funder Jim Simons in mid-October donated $1.5 million to Priorities (bringing his tally to $5 million) and $500,000 to House Majority PAC ($1.5 million total). And Houston attorney Steve Mostyn gave $1 million to Priorities, bringing the total given by him and his wife to more than $4 million.

The Democratic super PACs also got major support from labor unions.

While Priorities was outspent on ads $65 million to $144 million by Restore Our Future, the pro-Obama group has boasted of using its cash more effectively by airing early ads that sought to brand Romney as a heartless corporate raider – a strategy that mirrored the Obama campaign’s.

Obama’s campaign had urged its small donors to dig deep by issuing dire – and inaccurate, it turns out – predictions that it would be outspent by both super PACs and Romney’s campaign, and wouldn’t reach the $1 billion threshold. The idea that the campaign would raise that much was “bulls**t,” campaign manager Jim Messina asserted in a video message asking supporters for “contributions of three dollars or five dollars or whatever you can do to help us expand the map, to put more people on the ground, to build a real grass-roots campaign that is going to be the difference between winning and losing.”

Of the money the Obama campaign raised from Oct. 18 to Nov. 26, $20 million came from small-dollar donors – those who contributed $200 or less. People giving more than $200 constituted the bulk of Obama’s end-game haul — $42 million. Another $27 million arrived in the form of transfers from joint party committees.

The bulk of Obama’s spending in the final weeks went toward campaign advertisements, production and consulting — more than $85 million from Oct. 18 to Nov. 26, according to the campaign’s filings. Online advertising accounted for another $23 million in spending. Travel ($10 million) and payroll ($4 million) also constituted major 11th hour expenses for the campaign.

Romney for President and the joint Romney Victory fund it created with the Republican National Committee raised $86 million from Oct. 18 to Nov. 26, two-thirds of which came from donations of greater than $250 each.

Romney for President spent $58.5 million, the bulk of its late haul, on ads and an additional $6.3 million on online ads. Romney’s campaign was believed to have been saving up for a major ad blitz close to election day after seeing Obama dominate the airwaves for months.

The rest of the money went toward travel expenses ($8.4 million), direct mail consulting, printing and postage ($7 million), digital consulting ($5.1 million) payroll ($2.8 million) and strategic consulting ($2.7 million).

“Romney Victory continued its strong fundraising through the final weeks of the campaign. Every dollar we raised was put to use in the effort to elect Mitt Romney,” Romney Victory National Finance Chairman Spencer Zwick in a statement Thursday.

But Romney’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and the joint Romney Victory fund finished with $26 million still in the bank, and only $1.2 million in debt. The Romney campaign stressed that the figure doesn’t include invoices it’s currently processing for services and goods purchased during the election and predicted that “there will be less than $1 million at year end.”

But, if history is any guide, the leftover cash and low debt figure could prompt questions about why Romney and the GOP didn’t either spend more, or transfer remaining cash to other Republican campaigns.

When John Kerry’s 2004 Democratic presidential campaign finished with more than $15 million in the bank, Democratic Party leaders demanded to know why and even questioned the Massachusetts’ senator’s motives.

By contrast, Obama’s campaign, combined with the Democratic National Committee and a pair of joint committees created by the two entities, concluded the reporting period with $24 million in the bank, but also $31 million in debt.