Small Donations Add Up to $29.1 Million for Obama

President Obama's raised $29.1 million in January, outpacing last year's figures, but the president's team would also like to remind you that 98 percent of those donations were $250 and less.

President Obama's raised $29.1 million in January, outpacing last year's figures, but the president's team would also like to remind you that 98 percent of those donations were $250 and less. That kind of cash infusion would sound good to any candidate, but from President Obama's Twitter account, they seem equally proud of the fact that 98 percent of contributions were under $250. In an election year where much of the fight and focus seems to be on middle-class voters, support in tiny numbers is a good thing, assuming that those cash-strapped donors are giving what they can.

But the AP is taking those figures and the Team Obama tweet with a grain of salt. "Many of those donors, however, are repeat contributors, meaning that their aggregate donations over the past year would exceed $250," wrote the AP. "Still, the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute, which analyzes contributions, found that small donors, those whose aggregate contributions amounted to less than $200, accounted for 48 percent of Obama’s campaign income in 2011."

Regardless of the final breakdown, that's some pretty good news to come home to. Today's figures come as Obama is concluding a West Coast swing, where, according to the Los Angeles Times and the DNC,he's expected to raise around $8 million.