Obama’s fundraising totals a record $86 million

President Obama’s reelection arm raised a record $86 million from April to June, illustrating strong enthusiasm among Democrats and providing the president with enough money to set up extensive campaign operations more than a year before Election Day.

Obama’s fundraising haul, which his campaign announced with a video Wednesday morning, is the most any presidential candidate has ever raised during this time frame. More than half the total, about $47 million, was given directly to Obama, with the other $38 million or so going to the Democratic National Committee.

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Obama’s total dwarfs the amount raised by Republican Mitt Romney, who with $18.5 million led the field of candidates vying to take on the president. In fact, the president’s amount tops the $35 million taken in by all the Republican hopefuls combined.

The money provides Obama with a strategic advantage: While the Republicans seeking to replace him will have to spend much of what they raise this year competing against one another, the president can build up his bank account or invest in campaign operations as he sees fit.

Campaign officials are already hiring spokespeople for key regions, working to register people to vote, and having volunteers contact past supporters and encourage them to get behind Obama again. They have opened 60 offices in states around the country.

The 552,462 people who donated to the president, including 260,000 who did not give in 2008, also suggests that a solid number of supporters may campaign as hard for Obama as they did in 2008, despite frustration among some with his decisions.

At the same time, the rules of fundraising have been reshaped since the last presidential campaign, after a Supreme Court decision that overturned bans on corporate giving. While the Republican presidential candidates are far behind Obama in fundraising, outside conservative groups that can raise contributions in unlimited amounts are likely to narrow any gap between the president and the eventual GOP nominee.

A group advised by former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove called American Crossroads, for instance, has said it plans to spend $120 million in the 2012 election cycle.

“Having a half-million donors is a big deal — it means that you potentially have a large number of people who are prepared to carry clipboards for you,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. “But [Republican] candidates can set up a ‘super-PAC’ structure” to close the fundraising gap.

Republicans acknowledged that Obama’s money will give him an early advantage, but they argued that the sluggish economy and dissatisfaction among many voters with the president’s leadership leave him vulnerable.

“All the king’s men and all the king’s money won’t be able to put this Humpty Dumpty together again,” Stuart Stevens, an adviser to Romney, said in a statement. “The D.C. power structure is invested in President Obama. They should keep raising money, our goal is to make them spend it all.”