The presidential election campaigns of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama spent a combined $85.6m in June, according to recent federal disclosures.
With less than four months until the election Mr Romney's campaign is beefing up on personnel and investing cash internally as outside groups pour millions into ads to help him counter Mr Obama's messaging over the airwaves.
Mr Obama's spending still dwarfs Mr Romney's June outlays, with two-thirds of it going to advertising, but yesterday’s filings show the Republican investing more in infrastructure as the race has been stuck in dead heat.
Mr Obama's campaign doled out $58.1 million in June, nearly twice as much as he raised, yesterday's filings showed. Facing no competition within his own party, Mr Obama got an early start on ad buys, framing his Republican challenger negatively.
Mr Romney's campaign spent $27.5m in June, nearly double the $15.6m it spent in May and $12.6m spent in April, when Mr Romney first emerged as the presumed Republican presidential nominee.
Mr Romney spent less than half of his June haul on advertising, Reuters analysis of filings showed.
The internal spending uptick was expected as campaigning heats up in earnest, but it raises concerns of burning through cash on expenses that are not direct outreach to likely or potential voters, including ads.
Now, the scale appears to be levelling as Mr Romney added 125 new paid staff members in June for a total of 272 and spent $491,088 more on their salaries for a total of $1.3m.
He also spent nearly $440,000 on office supplies, furniture, equipment and other infrastructure build-up and equipment, and $9.6m on various consulting services.
Mr Obama's campaign added 76 new paid staffers in June for a total of 779, paying them $2.8m.
One hurdle for Mr Romney is a provision of the US campaign law that prohibits some funds to be spent until he is officially nominated at the Republican convention in late August.
Campaigns are allowed to accept up to $5,000 from a donor, but only half of that can be spent before the convention.
Mr Romney's campaign has reported having about $850,000 walled off to be available only for use after the convention. He also has a joint fund with the Republican National Committee that presumably has millions set off for the general election but filings so far have not clarified how much exactly.
His campaign has repeatedly argued that the rule has put Mr Romney at a disadvantage because Mr Obama ran for re-election unopposed and he fought a bitter fight against rival Republicans. Mr Obama, who had no Democratic opponents, has $7.8m set aside for the general election.
"We ... spent most of our primary dollars on the primary," Mr Romney told the Toledo Blade newspaper in an interview this week. "There are just many places we can't afford to be running ads. So we are massively outspent by a President that had no primary. And we are able to both shift into general election funds after our conventions, and we will be able to be more competitive, and you'll to see more of us as that occurs."
In June, Mr Romney's campaign received $24m in donations and had $22.5m in cash on hand, while Mr Obama's campaign received $28.1m and had $97.5m left in the bank.
Mr Obama's TV advertising spending has been effectively balanced out by Republican Super PACs, predominantly American Crossroads and the pro-Mr Romney Restore Our Future.
Mr Obama and Priorities USA Action, the outside "super" political action committee helping the president, have spent the past several weeks pummelling Mr Romney's past as a private equity executive and painting him as an out-of-touch rich man.
Priorities earlier this week bought $4m worth of advertising time in the battleground states of Colorado, Nevada and Florida, targeting Hispanic voters with a Spanish-language ad.
Restore Our Future spent $7.2m on ads that will run in 11 states from the end of July through 9 August, while American Crossroads is spending $9.3m on ads in nine states, defending Mr Romney from the Democrats' attacks on his business record.
The Mr Obama campaign earlier this week started airing a new ad raising questions about why Mr Romney, a millionaire, will not release more of his tax returns.
Republicans for months have been pointing to Mr Obama's rate of spending - for two months in a row now he's spent more than he has raised - calling it unsustainable.
"I trust the Mr Obama campaign, who ran a pretty good campaign four years ago, that they can do it this time around," said Barry Goodman, a Michigan fundraiser who together with his business partner has "bundled" more than $500,000 for the president's re-election campaign.
"They must feel comfortable that they can raise more."
In 2008, Mr Obama set a fundraising record of $750m hauled in, but this year his campaign has been sounding alarms that thanks to deep-pocketed Republican outside spending groups, Mr Obama could be the first ever incumbent to be outspent.
