Part of that haul will go to the Democratic party, but most of it will go right into the campaign coffers.

Obama has raised $250 million so far for his re-election. Washington Post:

The month's haul raises Obama's total combined fundraising for this election cycle to about $250 million. In the last three months of 2011, he averaged about $23 million a month.

That fundraising concluded before the campaign's announcement this month that, in a reversal, Obama would embrace the big big-money fundraising groups he once criticized and let them help in his re-election. Those so-called super PACs, financed with large donations from a small group of individuals, have been prominent in the Republican presidential primary and are also poised to spend millions in the general election contest.

The Obama campaign did not immediately provide a breakdown of the January fundraising but said 98 percent of the January donations were $250 or less.

Many of those donors, however, are repeat contributors, meaning that their aggregate donations over the past year would exceed $250. Still, the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute, which analyzes contributions, found that small donors, those whose aggregate contributions amounted to less than $200, accounted for 48 percent of Obama's campaign income in 2011.

That more than doubles the small donor contributions to his campaign in 2007, as he mounted his first campaign for president. What's more, the institute found that small donors accounted for only 9 percent of 2011 fundraising for Republican Mitt Romney, who is battling for front-runner status in the GOP presidential primary and is the top fundraiser in the Republican contest.

At this rate, he will fall short of his billion dollar goal. But it is likely that the fundraising pace will pick up considerably in the spring and summer so that by the time September 1 rolls around, the president should be close to the magic billion dollar number.

It's hard to imagine any GOP nominee raising half that amount.