With Rick Santorum out and Mitt Romney clear to focus on the president, campaigns prepare for onslaught of Super Pac ads

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

Barack Obama looks increasingly unlikely to hit the $1bn fundraising target for the November elections despite having raised $53m in March.

Although the total announced by his campaign team Monday appears impressive, it falls well short of the funds the Democrats were hoping for last year. The Democrats anticipate an advertising onslaught on Obama from conservative Super Pacs supporting the Republican candidate, almost certainly Mitt Romney.

"We're all going to have to dig even deeper, work even harder, move even faster," said Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager.

The $53m brings the total for the first three months of the year to $127m. Adding in the $250m he raised last year, Obama has so far raised $377m.

To reach the $1bn target, which Democrats are now playing down, Obama would have to raise about $90m each month through to the election.

Obama's fundraising includes money for his own re-election as well as money he is raising to help Democratic members contesting congressional elections in November. Obama raised $770m in 2008, and he had hoped to outstrip that.

The campaign announced its March figures ahead of publication by the federal election commission on Friday. Romney has yet to release fundraising figures for March. He has raised $75m since he formally began campaigning last year, but much of this has been eaten up by the battle against his Republican rivals for the party presidential nomination.

With the exit of Rick Santorum from the race, Romney is now relatively free to focus on the battle with Obama.

Romney's fundraising so far has been relatively modest compared with Obama's, but the conservative Super Pacs are accummulating vast war chests. Their figures, too, have to be released by Friday.

The Republican national committee raised $13.7m in March, giving it a war chest of $32.7m.

Obama's $53m is a big improvement on January, when he took in $29m, and February's $45m. The total for the first three months of the year is less than the $136m he raised in the same period in 2008.

The Democrats will hope that fundraising will improve as the election comes closer.

Messina attempted to portray Obama's fundraising as a populist story, funded by lots of small donors rather than a small group of wealthy investors. The Obama campaign said there were 567,000 donors, 190,000 of them donating for the first time. The average donation was $50.78, and 90% of them were $250 or less.

Messina, in a campaign video announcing the March fundraising figure, said; "This is really how this works, people building the organisation five to 10 bucks at a time to take on Mitt Romney."