A protracted GOP primary fight could leave Mitt Romney limping into the general election. Mitt's burn rate a boon for Obama

Mitt Romney is burning through cash more than twice as fast as he’s raising it, new reports filed Monday show — a clear sign that a protracted GOP primary fight could leave the front-runner limping into a general election fight with President Barack Obama.

Romney’s presidential campaign and the super PAC supporting him pulled in $13.1 million in January, but spent $32.7 million in the same month — an astounding burn rate more than double any of his rivals’ campaigns or super PACs.


The filings also show Romney’s fundraising operation is struggling to pick up momentum, seeing a minimal surge in cash after his big New Hampshire win and a plunge after his South Carolina loss.

While Romney’s campaign and his super PAC finished January with $24 million in the bank — more cash than the campaigns and super PACs of Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich combined — whether Romney can sustain his spending-to-fundraising ratio after the next few contests is an open question.

GOP insiders worry that if Romney and his allies are forced to continue to outspend his competitors by mega-margins without winning over new donors, he could run the risk of tapping out core donors before Republicans even get to the general election showdown with Obama, whose campaign has deeper pockets than any prospective GOP rival.

“[Romney] has enough money to compete in Michigan, but if he doesn’t do well, he will have a dry spell, and he might have to lend himself money, as he did four years ago,” said Michael Malbin, whose Campaign Finance Institute tracks fundraising and spending. “If he does well in Michigan, he probably won’t need to. But — if he needs to — he still has a pretty big wallet that he can pull out of his pocket.”

About half of Romney’s haul last month came from supporters giving at least $2,500, the maximum donation for an election — meaning they can’t give again to Romney’s primary campaign — likely forcing the campaign to try to expand its donor base. Romney raised only 15 percent of his $7.7 million in January from small donors.

Romney’s own deep pockets, plus his large reserves, still give him a strategic advantage over his immediate challengers.

Malbin contrasted Romney’s situation to his rivals’, who “have steep hills to climb to get to the point where they have the reserves they need to run on super Tuesday” March 6 and “have to rely on rich friends” to fund supportive super PACs.

The two candidates who have seriously challenged Romney at times — Santorum and Gingrich — are in worse shape overall than Romney, finishing January with almost as much campaign debt, $2.7 million between them, as cash on hand, $3.3 million.

Yet they also in some ways seemed to get better results from their January spending. Santorum’s campaign and the super PAC supporting him took in a combined $6.6 million last month and spent $4.9 million — a 74-percent burn rate that was the lowest in the field — while powering him to a surprise win in the Iowa caucuses. In the same period, Romney’s campaign and the super PAC boosting it raised $13.1 million and spent $32.7 million – an astounding 249 percent burn rate that was more than twice as high as the next freest spending campaign-super PAC combo, that of Ron Paul.

Romney finance chairman Spencer Zwick said in a statement that the campaign “exceeded our fundraising goals,” in January and is “the only campaign who has the organization and resources to go the distance of a long primary process. We know there is a long road ahead and we will remain steady.”

But Romney’s continued inability to lock up the nomination despite superior fundraising, organization and air power has GOP insiders wringing their hands about whether his donors will have anything left for the general election.

In fact, the report his campaign filed Monday shows signs that the former Massachusetts governor’s disappointing performances have dampened a fundraising operation that once looked like a juggernaut.

Romney’s campaign saw fundraising spikes in the days leading up to most of the nominating contests in January, but it enjoyed only a modest spike after his big win in the Jan. 9 New Hampshire primary. Monday’s report does not cover the period after his win in the Jan. 31 Florida primary.

Its cash intake plateaued after Romney’s loss in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, which were initially ruled a narrow Romney win but later declared a Santorum victory, and plummeted after Gingrich shellacked him in the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary. In the five days before the primary, Romney raised $2.2 million in itemized donations (those of $200 or more), while in the five days after his loss, he pulled in $805,000.

Santorum’s campaign, meanwhile, witnessed the opposite effect.

In the week after the Iowa caucuses, Santorum raised $857,000 in itemized contributions — a figure that does not include donations of less than $200, which aren’t required to be listed.

And according to the Santorum’s aides, his campaign saw another spike in donations after he swept the contests this month in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado — raising $3 million in three days, largely from small donors — though that period is not covered in Monday’s report.

Likewise, a source familiar with the super PAC supporting Santorum, which is called the Red, White and Blue Fund, said it also saw its fundraising pick up after Santorum’s sweep. It reported raising $2.1 million in January — nearly 80 percent of which came from two megadonors: low-profile Louisiana energy executive William J. Dore and the suddenly controversial Santorum backer Foster Friess.

The super PAC spent $1.4 million boosting Santorum last month and was credited with helping him win the Iowa caucuses at a time when his own campaign had little cash.

Yet, the campaign’s Monday report does highlight potential problems, namely the campaign’s $957,000 debt, dominated by $500,000 owed to the Pittsburgh firm of its media consultant, John Brabender.

Yet, he said in an interview with POLITICO that the campaign is rapidly adding donors, boasting that, since the beginning of February, it has had more than 80,000 unique contributors.

“There wasn’t that type of intensity going on after Iowa,” he said, echoing the Santorum campaign’s argument that its small donor base reflects widespread grass-roots support.

In all, Monday’s report shows that Santorum’s campaign raised 58 percent of its $4.5 million from such small donations, versus only $852,000 from donors who gave $1,000 or more.

Romney, on the other hand, raised only 15 percent of his $7.7 million from small donors.

The super PAC supporting him, Restore Our Future, continued its gangbusters big-donor fundraising in January — pulling in $6.6 million — but it also spent a stunning $14 million, primarily on tough ads ripping Gingrich and Santorum.

The group has scaled back the sizes of its media buys in Michigan, placing buys for shorter periods and at lower point levels than in Florida, for example, and then incrementally adding points and extending dates, a media buying source told POLITICO.

And Restore Our Future, which had received seven donations of $1 million last year, did not report any in January, though it did include 25 six-figure donations, many from repeat donors, which accounted for $4.9 million of Restore Our Future’s January haul.

It received $500,000 checks from three separate donors: coal company executive Joseph W. Craft of Tulsa, Okla., Bruce Kovner of New York City and David Lisonbee of Sandy, Utah. And it showed repeat donations from brothers J.W. and Richard Marriott, who donated a combined $500,000 in January, which adds to the combined $1 million they donated last year.

And, in a promising sign for Romney, Restore Our Future received $100,000 from Harold Simmons. The Dallas billionaire is emerging as the leading conservative super PAC donor of the 2012 cycle, having donated $12 million to the Karl Rove-linked American Crossroads, which is staying neutral in the primary but intends to back the nominee against Obama, and $1 million each to the super PACs supporting Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has since dropped out of the race, and Gingrich, respectively.

Gingrich’s campaign, meanwhile, pulled in $5.6 million, but spent $300,000 more than that, leaving it with $1.8 million in the bank and a potentially troublesome $1.7 million in debt. Major debts included $115,000 to a Mesa, Ariz., company called Campaign Fundraising Experts and $271,000 for charter airfare to Moby Dick Airways.

Gingrich, the former House speaker whose fortunes lagged as the pro-Romney super PAC bombarded him with negative ads in Iowa, was boosted by a super PAC that sprang to his defense called Winning Our Future. It raised more than $11 million in January — $10 million of which came from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam. The group spent $7.5 million on radio and TV ads hitting Romney and boosting Gingrich, as well as $413,000 on phone banking and $636,000 on online ads and emails.

Even Paul, a darling of the libertarian wing of the GOP whose long-shot campaign has been run with surprising efficiency, found himself boosted by a robust super PAC in January.

The group, Endorse Liberty, raised $2.4 million in January, on top of $1 million in late December, $2.6 million of which has come from billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who runs the hedge fund Clarium Capital.

Paul, who has yet to win a contest despite a close showing in this month’s Maine caucuses, has nonetheless pledged to take his campaign all the way to the GOP convention in Tampa this summer — and his campaign seems financially surefooted enough to accomplish that goal.

It raised $4.5 million in January, $2.1 million of which came from small donations. And, though it spent more than $5.2 million — including $1.5 million on TV, $563,000 on direct mail and $2,100 on Papa John’s pizza — it still finished the month with $1.6 million in the bank and no debt.

That’s hardly Romney-esque money, Paul’s reports reveal a campaign with relatively low overhead, as well as a steady stream of small- and medium-sized donations that should be sufficient to maintain the operation going forward.

Obama had the best January of all and has far more in the bank than any of his prospective GOP rivals, though a super PAC set up to support him continued to struggle. His campaign and a joint committee set up with the Democratic National Committee raised $22.8 million in January and finished the month with a combined $96.6 million in the bank.

— Dave Levinthal, Robin Bravender and Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.