66 Million Raised For Obama In August

Barack Obama’s fundraising generated more than 66 million dollars in August. An Obama aide said the campaign added 500,000 new donors to its rolls in August.

This shatters the campaign's previous record of $55 million. Obama’s ever growing base of contributors is now estimated to be north of 2.3 million donors.

Obama's total for August was almost $20 million more than the $47 million Republican rival John McCain raised last month.

Obama's campaign said that with the latest figures he had more than $77 million cash on hand.

The previous benchmark for the campaign to allow it to fully fund its projected fall budget of $200 million was a monthly fundraising goal of 54 million dollars between now and November. Now the Obama campaign indicates that they will need to maintain last month's level of giving in order to match revised estimates of the Republican's war chest for John McCain.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said Sunday that the campaign would not file its report to the Federal Election Commission until Sept. 20, so a more precise analysis of how the money was raised will not be possible until then.