The liberal favorite still trails incumbent Scott Brown in cash on hand, but her impressive haul brings her closer in the neck-and-neck Massachusetts Senate race.

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Reuters

Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has posted another mammoth fundraising quarter, raising $6.9 million in the first three months of the year, more than double the $3.4 million haul of Republican Sen. Scott Brown.

Warren raised $5.7 million in the fourth quarter on 2011, teeing up sky-high expectations for the first three months of 2012. But once, again, she's set a new precedent for fundraising prowess.

Warren campaign manager Mindy Myers said that 83 percent of Warren's donations since Jan. 1 have been $50 or less.

Warren's campaign did not immediately release her cash on hand total, but sent a note to supporters, saying that Brown "still has $4 million more in the bank than we do, and there's a lot of work ahead to do to close the gap." Brown ended the first quarter with $15 million in the bank.

Brown and Warren have signed on to an agreement to curb the influence of outside groups in the race. The pact imposes fines for each candidate if third party organizations meddle on their behalf. In the lead-up to the agreement, anti-Brown forces had been outspending anti-Warren forces nearly 3-1, suggesting that the agreement would work to the advantage of Brown, who had a substantially larger war chest. But Warren is quickly gaming ground in the cash-on-hand chase, evening the playing field if the race does remain largely free of outside group spending.

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