President Obama has given $5,000 to his own reelection campaign, an official confirms to POLITICO.
In an email to supporters this morning, Obama said that he had given to his own reelection campaign for the first time as a symbolic gesture.
“On its own, what I gave won’t be enough to surmount the unprecedented fundraising we’ve seen on the other side, both from our opponent’s campaign and from the outside groups and special interests supporting him,” Obama wrote. “But we have always believed that there’s nothing we can’t do when we all pitch in. That includes me.”
While there are no limits on a candidate donating to his or her own campaign, Obama’s donation is the federal maximum that an individual can give to a campaign (of course, the ‘real’ maximum is much higher — and the Obama campaign has taken donations from individuals as high as $75,000 by combining their fundraising effort with the Democratic National Committee and state parties).
Chicago has embarked on an all-out fundraising push in advanced of the July fundraising deadline — attempting to keep pace with a Mitt Romney fundraising operation that has outpaced them two months in a row.
“Over the past two months, we have been outraised by our opponents. They’ve used that advantage to distort the truth and mislead people, over and over, on TV and the radio in battleground states,” Obama wrote in a different email to supporters. “Tonight is one of the most critical fundraising deadlines we’ll face.”
