BOSTON — Democratic Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren pulled in more than twice as much as Republican incumbent Scott P. Brown in contributions during the first three months of the year, raising the fundraising stakes in one of the nation’s most closely watched campaigns.
Mrs. Warren’s campaign reported Monday that it raised $6.9 million from Jan. 1 through March 31, compared with the $3.4 million that Mr. Brown’s campaign said it raised in the same period. Her total surpasses the amount the freshman Republican raised in the past two quarters combined.
Mr. Brown’s campaign said it now has about $15 million in his re-election account, compared with the $11 million that the Warren campaign reported.
The race is already on its way to becoming one of the most expensive Senate contests in the nation this year.
During 2011, Mr. Brown and Mrs. Warren, a former Harvard instructor and onetime consumer financial adviser to President Obama, pulled in a total of more than $17.5 million in contributions, according to Federal Election Commission records. The new donation numbers would bring that total to about $27.8 million.
Mrs. Warren didn’t formally join the race for the Democratic nomination for the Massachusetts Senate seat until mid-September.
But about 64 percent of the Democrat’s new funds from the first quarter came from out-of-state donors. The campaign previously said Mrs. Warren received $2.5 million from in-state donors during the three-month period.
Mr. Brown’s campaign hasn’t said how much of the $3.4 million it raised during the most recent quarter came from in-state donors.
Mrs. Warren’s campaign said 30,000 people from 350 Massachusetts communities have contributed to her campaign. The campaign also said 83 percent of first-quarter donations were $50 or less.
Mr. Brown’s campaign continued to focus on Mrs. Warren’s outsized number of out-of-state donations.
“Professor Warren’s fundraising continues to be mostly out-of-state money from extremely liberal donors and special interests that are trying to influence the Massachusetts election,” said Brown campaign spokesman Colin Reed.
Mr. Brown’s campaign has said only that 71 percent of the contributions it received in the first quarter came from Massachusetts donors, but unlike Mrs. Warren, wouldn’t reveal the dollar total of those donations.
Mrs. Warren’s campaign has also noted that Mr. Brown benefited from a flood of out-of-state donations during the closing weeks of the 2010 special election that propelled him to a stunning upset of state Attorney General Martha Coakley for the seat left vacant by the death of longtime Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from brain cancer.
With its hefty early fundraising totals, the Brown-Warren race is also on its way to becoming the most expensive campaign in Massachusetts history.
Mr. Brown has relied heavily on donations from the financial services and health care sectors, while Mrs. Warren has tapped the wallets of lawyers, fellow academics, union members and filmmakers.
An Associated Press analysis of 2011 donations to both candidates found Mr. Brown pulled in more than $880,000 last year in donations from bankers, investors, venture capitalists, private equity professionals and others working in the financial services sector.
Mrs. Warren, who collected about $175,000 from the financial services sector, took in far more than Mr. Brown from lawyers, collecting nearly $700,000 from attorneys compared with Mr. Brown’s $348,000.
She has also pulled in checks from the entertainment industry, including Hollywood actors Barbra Streisand and Danny DeVito and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, each of whom donated $2,500.
Some recent polls have given Mr. Brown, the only Republican in Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, an edge while others have the race essentially a tossup.
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