Mitt money: Romney's Utah cash dwarfs all others

Competition among presidential candidates for Utah donations might be akin to a race with 14 horses — plus one rocket. Mitt Romney is the rocket.

New disclosure forms show Romney has raised eight times as much in Utah as all other presidential candidates combined. He raised 31 times more than his nearest competitor here. And nationally, an eighth of all the money that Romney has raised came from the Beehive State.

Also, Romney's 30 national finance chairmen — who were in Utah on Monday with campaign staff to plan strategy and set new fund-raising goals — said they hope to raise $2 million more from Utah, where they have now already raised $3.8 million. They said Romney will visit here again a few times for that effort.

An analysis by the Deseret Morning News also shows that on a per-population basis, Romney is receiving far more money from Utahns than anywhere — and that six of his top 10 states have large LDS populations. While many pundits have noted that being LDS can cost him votes in many areas, it is helping him to raise money in the West.

Richard Ballam is a Logan pharmacist who gave Romney — former head of the 2002 Olympics and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the maximum allowed $2,300 last February for the primary race. No one solicited Ballam; he just sent in a check.

Romney "wouldn't know me from anyone. I haven't met him. Hey, I may walk right past him and not recognize him. But I like him a lot. I like what he stands for. I've followed his dad's career and his career. I know a lot about Mitt" from reading and TV. "Everything he touches turns to gold."

"And I'd be happy to give more if he needs it" later in the race, said Ballam, who says he's voted for Republicans and Democrats alike over the years.

As of June 30, Romney had raised $3.8 million from Utahns. All other presidential candidates had raised slightly more than $500,000 in the state.

Romney has a broad and deep financial reach in Utah. More than 3,600 individuals had donated to him here. Not only had many of them given him the maximum $2,300 for his primary race (and $2,300 for the general race if he makes it that far), many had received refunds from his campaign for accidentally exceeding legal limits.

All of Romney's finance co-chairmen from around the nation flew into Deer Valley Sunday night for a Monday meeting to set fund-raising goals, said Kem Gardner, Utah's co-chairman who hosted the event.

"We have all the players here, and we spoke with Mitt for an hour this morning on a conference call," said Gardner, long a Romney supporter and one of the developers of The Gateway center in Salt Lake City.