COLUMBIA, S.C. - Gov. Mark Sanford raised more during the last quarter for his re-election bid than the three men who want his job.

Campaign finance reports filed Monday with the State Ethics Commission show Sanford's campaign generated $642,987 between March and June. The campaign spent just over $80,000 and had a total of $3.4 million on hand.

Voters will decide in a June 2006 primary whether Sanford is the Republican Party's nominee for governor. So far, Sanford's only primary opposition is Dr. Oscar Lovelace, a physician from Lexington County.

Lovelace's first campaign finance report shows he raised $20,940, a little less than 3 percent of what Sanford had gathered. That "doesn't include my rural doctor wealth," Lovelace joked. Sanford has "got all the money and I've got all the votes," he said.

There's also a primary on the Democratic side, with Clearwater Sen. Tommy Moore and Florence Mayor Frank Willis. Their initial campaign finance reports show that they can raise cash to mount a viable campaign, but they're both millions behind Sanford.

Moore raised $208,792 and had a slight lead on Willis, who picked up $192,900 during the quarter in addition to the $16,500 he started with.

"Money talks and it is going to be an awfully hard row to hoe" for Sanford's challengers, Francis Marion University political science professor Neal Thigpen said. "They've got an awful lot of phone calls and fund-raising to do."

Incumbents usually have the advantage of prestige and contacts from a successful campaign that makes it easier to tap donors.

Apart from that and his war chest, Sanford is popular with voters in a Republican-leaning state, said Scott Huffmon, a Winthrop University political science professor.

That leaves challengers hoping for the worst from Sanford.

"They really need a meltdown in the governor's office," Huffmon said. News this week that Standard and Poor's was lowering the state's credit rating probably left challengers "smacking their lips," he said.

But "it's going to take a lot more than that. It's too far from the election. You need that times ten to get the populace in South Carolina to vote against a popular governor," Huffmon said. "It's going to take a series of breakdowns for a Democrat to wrest control of the governor's office away from" Sanford, Huffmon said.