Despite dispiriting poll numbers related to his presidency, President Obama’s re-election campaign raked in more than $70 million during the July-September reporting period. The figure, which exceeds the campaign’s goal for the quarter of $55 million, also will exceed the amount that the collective Republican field is anticipated to report.

In an email to supporters, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said that more than 600,000 people made more than 766,000 donations, 98 percent of which were $250 or less and $56 on average. So far 980,000 people have contributed to the campaign.

“That’s more than twice as many donations than we had at this point in the historic 2008 campaign,” he wrote, adding that, “Right now, 982,967 people have donated to this campaign. We're within striking distance of one million donors.”

Obama has raised tens of millions more than the Republicans who seek to oust him from office, the Associated Press reports, and he won’t need to access most of the money until the next year because he doesn’t have a primary opponent.

Mitt Romney has so far raised more than his GOP rivals, reporting more than $18 million during the first three months of his campaign, but is not expected to exceed that amount in the latest reporting period. Texas Gov. Rick Perry raised $17 million in his first seven weeks in the race and had $15 million in cash on hand.

According to AP, Obama campaign advisors have privately said that they hope to match or exceed the eye-popping $750 million raised in 2008, which would pay for television ads and a ”massive” get-out-the-vote effort.

Medina said in the email that the campaign has spent the past few months doubling its staff and opening up three new field offices each week, and that thousands of volunteers and organizers have made three million phone calls and in-person visits to voters.

“We're up against a Republican Party and special interest-funded groups that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars spreading any message that they believe will defeat the president and roll back our efforts to build a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility, not large corporations,” he said.

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski told AP that the president would “need every penny he can raise because voters don’t believe he has the ability to turn the economy around or create much-needed jobs.”

(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)