President Obama raised more than $47 million for his re-election campaign in the last three months, according to an early morning email announcement.

In a web video sent just before 5 a.m., Obama for America’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said 552,462 individual donors had contributed to the president’s re-election effort, a modern record.

The Democratic National Committee, which has teamed up with OFA for a number of fundraisers, collected more than $38 million. Together, the Obama Victory Fund raised more than $86 million, exceeding their second quarter goal of $60 million.

Those numbers dwarf the totals of the president’s potential Republican opponents. Last week, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney reported raising $18.25 million, which appears to have given him a wide lead over the primary field. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty raised just $4.2 million, and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman announced a figure of $4.1 million, which included a $2 million dollar contribution from himself. (Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, considered a prodigious fundraiser, has yet to report her second quarter numbers.)

But rather than crow, Messina raised the specter of the Republicans’ independent expenditure organizations.

“It’s going to get tougher from here,” said Messina, estimating that ”G.O.P. outside spending for 2012 could be as much as $500 million dollars.” (And while he mentions that those groups do not have to report their contributors, he doesn’t mention that Democrats have begun using similar groups for their own 2012 efforts.)

“This is a whole new ballgame, like we’ve never faced before,” he said.

Here’s the video:

Follow Reid Pillifant via RSS.