Obama raised more than $30 million in June: campaign

DAYTON, Ohio (Reuters) - Barack Obama raised well over $30 million in June, a top aide indicated on Friday, outpacing Republican rival John McCain again as the Democratic White House hopeful's fundraising picked up after a lull in May.

McCain raised $22 million in June for his White House bid, his best month of fundraising, according to his campaign.

The Wall Street Journal quoted people close to the Obama campaign as saying his total contributions in June would likely be just over $30 million.

Asked about the newspaper's figure, Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, said it was "way off the mark."

Asked if he meant it was more, he said he did. The campaign probably would not issue the June figure until close to the filing deadline of July 20, Gibbs added.

Obama had his best fundraising month in February when he took in $55 million and has recently stepped up efforts to bring in campaign cash. His fundraising slowed to $21.9 million in May, down from just over $30 million in April.

Obama has smashed all records for presidential fundraising, bringing in $287 million during the campaign, partly because of his success in using the Internet to bring in contributions from small donors.

The presumptive Republican nominee's campaign has voiced confidence he can compete financially with the record-setting Obama.

Obama said last month he would bypass the public financing system, rejecting $84 million in public funds and the accompanying limits on spending.

During May and early June, in the final stretch of his hard-fought Democratic nomination battle with Hillary Clinton, Obama spent little time attending the kind of high-dollar fundraisers that are traditionally a staple of presidential campaigns' fundraising efforts.

But Obama has recently devoted more time to such fundraisers in the past few weeks, including joining Clinton for some events in New York this week. He was due to attend two more fundraisers in Chicago on Friday evening.

The Illinois senator is the first presidential candidate to opt out of the system in the general election since it was created after the Watergate scandal in the mid-1970s.

McCain will participate, limiting his spending to $84 million from the end of the Republican convention in early September to the November election.

McCain had $27 million in the bank at the end of June, and the Republican National Committee had nearly $68 million.

Obama had about $43 million in the bank at the end of May. The Democratic National Committee, however, had just $4 million in the bank.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by Eric Beech)

(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)