“The urgency is now, it’s not September 30th,” said one Democratic source who is working alongside the Democratic super-PAC group Priorities USA.

“It’s go-time. It’s time to step it up,” added a top Democrat involved in one of the outside groups working to reelect the president, who said the rallying cry wasn’t a “sense of defeat or a sense of demoralization. It’s just the reality.”

Obama’s campaign has worried for months about going up against groups affiliated with GOP operative Karl Rove and billionaires David and Charles Koch. They’re desperate to avoid falling far behind in a campaign cash arms race expected to shatter old fundraising records.

“It makes us nauseous just thinking about all that money,” the Democrat added. “We won’t get to a billion dollars but we’ve got to keep it somewhat competitive.”