HispanicBusiness

President Obama is closing the fundraising gap with challenger Mitt Romney, edging out the Republican presidential nominee by about $2 million last month.

August fundraising numbers released by both candidates Monday show Obama taking in $114 million for the month and Romney getting $111.6 million.

Obama's August haul ended a three-month win streak for Romney in which he out-raised the incumbent by a total of $78 million.

"These fundraising numbers are showing some very positive traction," said R. Donahue Peebles, a real estate developer and member of Obama's national finance team.

He said Romney's numbers will start coming back down to earth now that many of his big-money donors have maxed out their contributions. Obama has a deeper well of smaller-money donors, who can give more, Peebles said.

"Romney got the benefit of the floodgates opening up once he became the presumptive nominee. And now the waters have stabilized, and now we have a more realistic balance between the two," he said.

Monday's reports are the result of voluntary disclosures by the campaigns, so they highlight only those numbers the campaigns want to focus on.

The Romney campaign said it has $168.5 million in the bank at the end of the month, when the Republican National Committee and some allied state parties are included in the total. The Obama campaign did not release a comparable figure.

Romney's numbers were attached to a statement from chief fundraiser Spencer Zwick and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus claiming "tremendous support from donors across the country."

The Obama campaign said it had contributions from almost 1.2 million Americans in August -- 317,000 of whom were donating for the first time. Romney did not disclose the number of first-time donors.

"The key to fighting back against the special interests writing limitless checks to support Mitt Romney is growing our donor base, and we did substantially in the month of August," said a statement from Obama campaign manager Jim Messina.

A fuller accounting of the fundraising and spending of the two campaigns won't come until the required federal reports are posted Sept. 20.

The numbers also don't include money raised by outside groups supporting the two candidates, which often have no limits on how much they can raise.