The one campaign metric in which Mitt Romney lags

Mr. Romney’s victories have come largely in states where he was favored to win, depriving him of the kind of dramatic upsets that can thrill grass-roots voters and spur them to donate. Interviews with more than a dozen supporters suggest that Mr. Romney has also been hampered by the widespread sense that he is the race’s de facto front-runner — and by his considerable personal wealth, which has left some of them thinking that Mr. Romney does not need their checks…

A spokeswoman said on Wednesday that Mr. Romney raised $11 million in February, bringing his total for the cycle to $77 million, much more than any other Republican in the race. But relatively little of it has come from small checks. Through the end of January, Mr. Romney raised about $6.4 million in unitemized contributions of under $200, just 10 percent of the money he had raised. (Candidates are not required to break down individual contributions under $200.)…

While Mr. Romney’s overall small-dollar total exceeds that of Rick Santorum, his closest rival, Mr. Santorum had the best month for small donors of any of the Republican candidates in January, capitalizing on his belated victory in Iowa to raise $2.6 million in contributions under $200. Millions more followed Mr. Santorum’s triple victories in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota, according to his campaign.