Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $22 million for her presidential primary campaign this summer, outpacing all other candidates so far with her best three-month showing of the year.
Her total fundraising of nearly $80 million for the 2008 presidential race, reported Tuesday, puts her on a par with her chief Democratic fundraising rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. He still leads Clinton in money raised for the primaries alone, though trailing in national opinion polls.
Obama reported raising at last $19 million from July through September for the primaries. He has raised a total of $75 million for the primary season and about $4 million for the general election next year.
Clinton's summer donations bring her total primary dollars raised this year to $62 million. The New York senator also raised $5 million for the general election in the quarter, adding to $12.6 million from previous quarters.
She also supplemented her fundraising earlier this year with a $10 million transfer from her 2006 Senate campaign.
This was the first quarter that Clinton has raised more than Obama, who has given her an unexpectedly tight competition in the money race.
"This is the moment when you showed that America is ready for change and that you are ready to make history," campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle said on the campaign's Web site in a message to supporters. "This is the moment when your dedication defied the skeptics. The early primaries and caucuses are coming up fast. We're going to need your help a lot in the next few months."
The Clinton campaign said her third-quarter contributions included money from 100,000 new donors, surpassing the 93,000 the Obama campaign said it attracted during the summer. Overall, the Obama campaign has said it has attracted 350,000 donors.
"More than 350,000 Americans have already signaled the kind of change they want in Washington by contributing to the Obama campaign," spokesman Bill Burton said. "We have raised a historic $74.9 million in dollars available for primary spending, without transferring one cent from any other campaign fund and with no money from federal lobbyists or PACs."