Qué podemos esperar de la recaudación del tercer cuarto

First Read:

*** Needing a boost: With the 3rd fundraising quarter ending today, all eyes are on Rick Perry's first finance numbers. It's been a rough couple of weeks for the Texas governor, but a strong fundraising showing -- say in the neighborhood of $15 million since announcing his bid in mid-August -- would give him a much-needed boost and would solidify his chances of competing financially with Mitt Romney (who raised $18 million last quarter). More than that amount would signal some SERIOUS fundraising chops for Perry, while less than that would be considered trouble for him. Back in June, Tim Pawlenty had a rough debate performance and followed up with a poor fundraising number ($4 million-plus). The question for Perry: Can he post a total that doesn't draw any comparisons to Pawlenty? Right now, Perry World is simply promising more than $10 million.

*** Expect the Romney and Obama hauls to be smaller than last quarter: Besides Perry, the other big players are expected to post fundraising numbers less than what they raised in the 2nd quarter. It's not surprising, after all: In 2007, most of the major candidates (Obama, Romney, and McCain) had lower numbers in the 3rd quarter, which includes the usually slow month of August. (An exception was George W. Bush, who raised $50 million in the 3rd quarter of '03.) Per the Boston Globe, Romney's camp “is on pace to raise between $11 million and $13 million” (down from $18 million last quarter). The campaign would not confirm those figures to First Read, saying: “We are going to raise considerably less than what we did in our first reporting period, but we will still meet our finance goals for this quarter.” Meanwhile, Obama's re-election campaign says it's expected raise a combined $55 million for the campaign and the DNC -- less than the combined $86 million last quarter. One big reason why, per the campaign: Several fundraisers were canceled during the debt-ceiling negotiations.

*** On the Bachmann, Paul, and Huntsman hauls: As for the rest, Bachmann said yesterday that her campaign “will probably be reporting even more than we have brought in before,” NBC’s Jamie Novogrod reports. (Bachmann raised just more than $4 million last quarter.) But Bachmann’s fundraising costs a lot to maintain (direct mail), and the Iowa Straw Poll was EXPENSIVE for her, so pay attention to her cash on hand. Paul reportedly will bring in $5 million for the 3rd quarter. And don’t expect a good number from Team Huntsman; there’s a reason why the campaign moved its headquarters from Florida to New Hampshire.

Note: The campaigns have until Oct. 15 to file their 3rd quarter reports to the Federal Election Commission.