Bain Capital founder Mitt Romney is far and away the favourite presidential candidate of big private equity firms this year, but his campaign has only $9m (€6.3m) of cash on hand compared to widely acknowledged frontrunner Hilary Clinton, whose campaign has over $50m to spend.

Romney 's campaign drew $394,500 so far this year from private equity funds larger than $500m, including $71,100 in contributions just during the third quarter, according to Thomson Financial's PEhub.com.