McCain Earns May Fundraising Draw

While you were out (hopefully) enjoying the first weekend of summer, the campaigns released their latest fundraising reports.

And it turns out that May might be considered a bad fundraising month for Barack Obama – that is, if $23.3 million raised counts as "bad." Compare the May total to Obama's past performance: The presumptive Democratic nominee, whose fundraising success has been unprecedented, raised nearly $32 million in April and more than $40 million in March.

Including May, Obama, who has opted out of public financing for the general election, has now raised $295.5 million. He has $43.1 million on hand as of the end of the month, including $33.3 million for the primary.

John McCain, meanwhile, raised $21.5 million in May, his best fundraising month yet. His total, which nearly matches Obama for the month, marks an improvement on the $18.5 million he raised in April and roughly $15 million he took in in March. McCain has now raised $121.9 million for the campaign and has $31.6 million on hand.

There was more good news in the May reports for McCain: The Republican National Committee, which will be spending aggressively on McCain's behalf in the coming months, took in $24.4 million for the month. The Democratic National Committee, by contrast, took in just $4.8 million. The RNC now has $53.5 million in the bank to the DNCs $3.9 million, and is poised to help at least partially make up McCain's fundraising gap.

Hillary Clinton's campaign, meanwhile, reports a total debt of $22.5 million as of the end of May, a total that includes the $12.2 million personal loan Clinton made to the campaign. Clinton raised $16.3 million for the month but spent $19.2 million, increasing the debt she needs to retire from her now-suspended run for the Democratic nomination.