On a conference call with reporters and bloggers this afternoon, Campaign Manager Jonathan Prince and Finance Director Jennifer Swanson reported that for the first quarter, the Edwards campaign raised in excess of $14 million dollars. The exact number of donors was not available, but it is greater than 37,000 donors, which is a preliminary number of online donors. The final number is likely to be around 40,000 donors.

This is about $4 million dollars greater than had been budgeted. The amount spent and the cash on hand was not immediately available. The finance team is working on getting additional numbers as quickly as possible.

There was no money transferred from other campaigns, and only a small amount, a little less than a million dollars is ‘general election’ money.

Numerous reporters tried to get the finance team to compare the numbers to what Clinton had raised, but Prince stayed with the key point that the Edwards campaign raised more than enough to meet its goals of getting its message out. He did comment that at some point, there is diminishing returns.

It was noted that the number was nearly twice what was raised during the same period in the 2004 election and it reflected a growing base of donors.

Other questions included how Elizabeth was doing, no new news. One person asked if Elizabeth’s health played a role in the momentum, to which Prince commented that they had expected the final days of the quarter to be the busiest and there was no way of telling how much was a result of the news about Elizabeth’s health and how much was the normally expected volume at the end of a quarter.

When asked about how plans would change in the second quarter and beyond, Prince said that they would not be releasing budgets ahead of time, just as they hadn’t this time. He did note that as you move closer to an election, more of the focus moves to contacting voters and away from the fundraising focus, but he wouldn’t give any further details.

There were assorted other questions, such as the number of mailings sent out in the last couple days (three), the number of fundraising events held (didn’t have that information), and so on.

All in all, it stayed very much on the message of, The Edwards campaign raised in excess of $14 million. It was over $4 million dollars beyond what had been budgeted and the campaign has more than enough money to get its message out. What other campaigns will need, is for other campaigns to talk about.

(Cross posted at DailyKos)