Campaign finance reports filed late Thursday showed Utahns contributed about $6 million last year to the presidential race, with about 90 percent of it ending up in Romney's account.
Utah ranked as one of Romney's top states, though the former Massachusetts governor himself was his campaign's largest donor.
Overall, Romney contributed more than a third of his own campaign's total last year, writing a check for more than $35 million of the $90 million his campaign raised. Romney is a self-made millionaire and one of the richest candidates in the 2008 White House race.
Romney's haul sets a new record in Utah politics, with longtime political observers saying it's the most money a single candidate has grabbed from residents in such a short time frame. Romney has several links to the state: He shares his Mormon faith with more than 60 percent of residents, owns a home in Utah and ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
"For Romney to raise that amount of money in one year is almost mind-blowing because he's had to raise it $2,300 or less at a time," says Kirk Jowers, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and a Romney supporter. Federal election laws bar candidates from raising more than $2,300 from an individual for the primary election.
Romney wasn't the only one to nab cash from Utahns.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign grabbed more than $250,000 from residents in the fourth quarter, for a total of $360,000 in 2007. The New York Democrat's husband, former President Clinton, raised money during fundraisers in the state in the fall.
Several other contenders still in the race, including Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had not filed reports by late Thursday.
Reports filed Thursday do not include any money raised after the first of the year; those filings will be due in March.
Romney again took in a declining amount of money from Utahns as compared to other quarters in 2007. In the first three months, Romney had raised $2.7 million, but his hauls lessened as the year continued.
tburr@sltrib.com
