NEW YORK — Republican challenger Mitt Romney, chasing President Barack Obama’s cash advantage, expects to raise at least $10 million in a dozen events during a three-day fundraising swing through the New York area that included a video meeting with donors in China.
“We’ve had a successful swing here in New York,” Spencer Zwick, Romney’s national finance chairman, told roughly 250 donors who paid $2,500 each to attend a luncheon on Monday at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on Park Avenue. “We will raise more than $10 million, potentially substantially more than that.”
Romney also planned a July fundraiser with former Vice President Dick Cheney in Wyoming, according to a “Save the Date” invitation to the event.
Romney’s fundraising has increased dramatically since he became his party’s presumptive nominee and started raising money with the Republican National Committee. With the party, Romney raised $40.1 million in April; President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party together raised $43.6 million last month.
Prominent Romney donor, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, said the new numbers are cause for optimism.
“We were expecting Obama to bury us 3-to-1, 4-to-1, 10-to-1, I don’t know. But we’re not being buried,” Johnson said. “We have to win with ideas. And we’ve got to win with cash.”
In just one month, Obama’s 10-to-1 cash advantage has shrunk to 2-to-1, partly because the RNC now is helping Romney. By himself, Romney raised $12.5 million in March. He may match that total in just three days.
The recent financial success includes outreach to American citizens who are living or working abroad.
After meeting donors in Connecticut on Sunday night, Romney hosted a private video conference via Skype with donors in Hong Kong and Singapore. Noncitizens are barred from contributing money to American elections, but Americans living or working abroad, in addition to green-card holders, may donate.
The Republican campaign is also trying to entice donors with a “team-building” trip to Utah next month.
Eligible donors will have to reach “a certain level, which isn’t that hard to reach,” Johnson said.
Fundraising documents distributed outside the luncheon showed that each donor must raise $250,000 to qualify for the trip to Park City, Utah.
Also on Monday, Obama defended his criticism of Romney’s ties to the private equity firm Bain Capital, saying it was rightly part of the campaign debate because Romney himself was emphasizing his business background.
Still, at a news conference closing a NATO summit in Chicago, Obama said the main mission of private equity companies is to “maximize profits” for themselves and their investors.
“That’s part of the role of a lot of business people. That’s not unique to private equity,” he said.
But a president’s job, he said, is to worry about everybody, not just some.
In a statement, Romney characterized Obama’s comments as more “attacks on the free-enterprise system.”
“What this election is about is the 23 million Americans who are still struggling to find work and the millions who have lost their homes and have fallen into poverty,” Romney said. “President Obama refuses to accept moral responsibility for his failed policies. My campaign is offering a positive agenda to help America get back to work.”
Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 05/22/2012