Sen. John McCain will raise more than $12.5M this fundraising quarter, surpassing last quarter's total and meeting the campaign's internal targets.
"We'll do better than we did last quarter," said John Weaver, McCain's chief stategist.
Weaver declined to say how much he thought McCain would ultimately raise. He dismissed as simply false a report that McCain was on track to raise less than $10M. Both Weaver and campaign manager Terry Nelson have said that reports that McCain would need to raise $20M to be viable did not reflect the thinking of the campaign or the candidate.
Advisers to the other Republican candidates refused to provide estimates for their fundraising, but it is generally expected that both Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani will come close to meeting -- or exceed -- their first quarter totals.
Note: An NBCer says that Tim Russert reported this on Wednesday.
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