Romney scrambling for donations to fund new campaign spending

To sock away cash, Romney has been tacking fundraising events onto his schedule. He raised money in Daytona Beach, Fla., during a visit last weekend to ­NASCAR’s Daytona 500 race. In Michigan, he invited top donors to a reception Tuesday night as the state’s returns were coming in. On Thursday night, Romney will attend a fundraiser in Bellevue, Wash., and he has scheduled major fundraisers in Florida and New York in March. Another major event has been tentatively set for later in the month in the District.

Romney is also soliciting small-dollar donations online. His campaign released a Web video Wednesday urging supporters to make contributions as small as $10 to his “One Term Fund.”

And in his Tuesday night victory speech in Michigan, he made an unusually personal and public plea: “I’m asking for you, by the way, to go on MittRomney.com and pledge your support in every way possible.”…

One top Romney fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly, said the campaign clearly is struggling to cope with a fundraising challenge it didn’t expect to have several months ago.

“This slog they’re in is costing them tons of money,” this bundler said. “They’ve got a fundraising challenge in the sense that they have to keep raising money to keep up with the spending. They’re not in the hole or anything, but it’s a struggle.”