Newt Gingrich wants to cut the debt: his own

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wants to cut the debt: his own.

The long-shot presidential candidate is expected to announce he had raised $2 million in the three months through June, but his campaign still has more than $1 million in debt accrued in the early days, Politico reports. The second quarter fundraising reports are expected to be made public July 15.

The website reports Gingrich has paid off about 10 percent of $1.2 million in invoices in the three weeks following the mass resignation June 9 of most of his senior aides. The campaign has about $225,000 cash on hand.

These numbers are a major hurdle for a troubled campaign many political observers say is aimed more at selling books than actually trying to move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Gingrich has said he hopes to compete in Iowa, where he finished with just 7 percent support in a poll of likely Iowa caucus goers conducted by the Des Moines Register in late June. That leaves him behind front-runners Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain and tied with Rep. Ron Paul.

"The fact is a month of media barrage is painful, and it slowed a lot of things down," Gingrich told the Los Angeles Times, before marching in a Fourth of July parade in Clear Lake, Iowa. "Our numbers will not be as good as we would like, and candidly, the consultants left us in debt. But every single week since they left we've been cutting down the debt, and we raise more than we spend in a week.