WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama raised $29 million for his campaign and for the Democratic Party in January. It was a strong fundraising month that put him ahead of the pace he set in the last quarter of 2011.

In a Twitter message Friday morning, the Obama campaign announced the president raised the money through his Victory Fund for his re-election effort, for the Democratic National Committee and related committees.

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-money fundraising groups he once criticized and let them help in his re-election.