WASHINGTON — Senator Obama’s first quarter fund-raising haul of more than $25 million, from more than 100,000 donors, puts him within close range of Senator Clinton and indicates that his presidential campaign may have a broader base of support than the former first lady’s.

Although Mr. Obama reported a slightly lower total than Mrs. Clinton, who raised $26 million from about 50,000 donors for the period, he received donations from twice as many people, making it likely that he will have an easier time soliciting additional contributions within legal spending limits later in the campaign.

Despite the impressive showing by the upstart Illinois senator, Mrs. Clinton’s camp sought to take the news in stride yesterday. “Not worrisome to me,” a top Clinton fundraiser, John Catsimatidis, told The New York Sun when informed of Mr. Obama’s total. Mr. Catsimatidis, the owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain and a possible mayoral candidate in 2009, had earlier called the Clinton machine “unstoppable.”

“I don’t think he has the sustainability,” Mr. Catsimatidis said of Mr. Obama. “I don’t think he has the experience. I think at the end of the day, Clinton will be the nominee.”

The Clinton campaign issued a statement congratulating Mr. Obama and other Democratic hopefuls for their fund-raising totals, which topped those of their Republican counterparts in the first quarter of 2007.

“We are thrilled with our historic fund-raising success and congratulate Senator Obama and the entire Democratic field on their fund raising, which demonstrates the overwhelming desire for change in our country,” Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, said in the statement.

Mr. Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, was jubilant. “This overwhelming response, in only a few short weeks, shows the hunger for a different kind of politics in this country and a belief at the grassroots level that Barack Obama can bring out the best in America to solve our problem,” the campaign’s finance chairwoman, Penny Pritzker, said.

The freshman senator, who reported nearly one-quarter of his donations from the Internet, has drawn huge crowds across the country, and on Saturday the campaign held more than 5,000 house parties to raise last-minute cash before the March 31 deadline.

Mr. Obama was the last major candidate to report his first quarter fund-raising total, capping a sweepstakes that is viewed as an early barometer of campaign strength. The final key details will be available when the campaigns file their official fund-raising reports with the Federal Election Commission on April 15.

The top Democratic candidates have not said how much cash they actually have in hand, but Mrs. Clinton is likely to retain a bottom-line edge. Unlike Mr. Obama or John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who reported raising $14 million in the first quarter, Mrs. Clinton’s account includes an extra $10 million transferred from her 2006 Senate campaign for re-election, which she won handily. That gives her a total of $36 million raised.

Mr. Obama may have the money momentum, however, given his substantially larger base of donors and the fact that nearly all of his money — $23.5 million — can be spent on the primary, rather than the general election. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has not said how much of her total is eligible for primary spending, but ABC News reported last night that Mr. Obama raised several million dollars more for the primary during the first quarter.

While many Democrats and the Clinton campaign itself expected Mr. Obama to announce a total comparable to hers, some political observers said the sheer breadth of his support, as measured by the number of donors, was cause for concern for Mrs. Clinton. They noted that Mrs. Clinton was likely to have more contributions at the maximum legal amount — $2,300 for the primary and another $2,300 for the general election.

“Obama has plenty of room for growth left,” a veteran Democratic consultant who is the interim dean of Boston University’s College of Communication, Tobe Berkovitz, said. “People who wanted to give to Hillary have had plenty of opportunity to do so, and Obama is just revving it up. So if I was Hillary, I’d find that worrisome.”

The Obama total was made more impressive by his refusal, unlike Mrs. Clinton, to accept donations from lobbyists or political action committees, and because he lacks her chief fund-raising weapon, President Clinton.

Other strategists warned against exaggerating the significance of the early money numbers, noting that neither of the two top fund-raisers at various points during the 2004 Democratic primary season, Howard Dean and Mr. Edwards, ended up winning the nomination. “The only way the money thing matters is if you stumble,” the man who ran Dr. Dean’s campaign, Joseph Trippi, said. Having a deep war chest will allow a candidate who finishes badly in an early contest, such as Iowa or New Hampshire, to stick around and compete in subsequent states, he said.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton each appeared to edge the top Republican fund-raiser, Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts who reported taking in nearly $21 million from outside sources.

The early totals of all three top Democrats, and even of second-tier candidates such as Senator Dodd of Connecticut and Governor Richardson of New Mexico, suggest they will have enough money to last the duration of the campaign. Messrs. Dodd and Richardson reported having $7.5 million and $5 million, respectively.