Obama camp rakes in biggest fundraising haul of the cycle

The Obama campaign announced Saturday on Twitter its biggest fundraising number of the campaign cycle - $181 million, brought in by Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee in September.

That brings the total tally, including money from Super PACs, to the edge of $1 billion.

While it was long thought that the Obama campaign would reach that milestone during this cycle, back in December campaign manager Jim Messina tried to tamp down billion-dollar expectations, going as far as to say in a campaign video, "People have speculated this is a billion dollar campaign - that's bull****."

But after this month's haul, in a thankful email to supporters, Messina wrote, "Day in and day out, what gives the President confidence and inspiration is knowing that you have his back - that matters. We're all going to do the best we can over next 31 days to honor that support."

In total, the campaign says it has passed 10 million donations from 3,922,420 people. This month, 1,825,813 gave money; 567,000 of those were new, small donors.

It's not an all-time record for the Obama team, but it comes close. Four years ago, in September 2008, the campaign brought in $193 million.

Mitt Romney's campaign has not yet announced its September fundraising haul, but has released the amount it raised in the 48 hours after Wednesday's debate: $12 million dollars online, which, according to the campaign, surpasses online donations made after Paul Ryan was announced as Romney's running mate.