President Obama has received more than $500,000 in donations from military members, a figure that dwarfs the amount Mitt Romney raised by more than $250,000. That’s according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan election money tracking site, which released a report on October 15th detailing the political spending habits of military personnel.
Here’s the Open Secrets chart for total donations:
The trend has stayed consistent throughout the campaign. By September 2011, military members donated $13,000 to the Romney campaign; in contrast, his opponent Ron Paul had received more than $90,000. President Obama out gained Romney by more than $50,000 during that same time period.
Months later, after Romney all but secured the nomination, more of the military donations started moving toward Obama, who raised $184,000 from military members from January 2011 to March 2012, and away from other candidates. Romney’s total only went up $32,000 to a paltry $45,000 in total by that same point.
Obama has a strong track record when it comes to securing donations from military members; in 2008, then Sen. Obama raised more than $300,000 from military service members who donated more than $200, besting his opponent Sen. John McCain by $100,000.
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