BOSTON – President Bush reeled in more than $1 million for Mitt Romney’s gubernatorial bid Friday, hoping to lift the Republican to victory in this solidly Democratic state. Al Gore was raising money in neighboring Worcester for the Democrat, Shannon O’Brien.

Vice President Dick Cheney was raising hundreds of thousands more for GOP congressional candidates at three fund-raisers in Georgia.

Gore swept Massachusetts in 2000, despite then-Gov. Paul Cellucci’s support for Bush. But a Boston Herald poll released Friday showed the governor’s race a statistical dead heat. At a fund-raiser in Boston, Bush helped bring in $1.25 million for the state GOP, said Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman.

Bush was using his family’s oceanside Maine estate as a base to aid Republican candidates in New England this weekend, raising money for Romney and for a senatorial nominee in New Hampshire.

By afternoon, the president would be at his parents’ Walker’s Point compound on a dramatic stretch of Maine coastline.

But this visit to Kennebunkport – Bush’s third this year – will leave the president with little time for the usual regimen of naps, daybreak rounds of golf with his father, speedboating and workouts with a view of the Atlantic Ocean. With the midterm elections now only a month away and the stakes high, Bush’s drive to help fill Republican coffers is showing no signs of slowing down.

On Saturday, Bush was spending the first half of the day away from the serene vacation town to travel to New Hampshire. He was hoping to give a boost to GOP Rep. John E. Sununu, who beat incumbent Sen. Bob Smith in the Republican primary there and now faces Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in one of the country’s most-watched Senate races.

Before the luncheon cash-collecting and campaign effort for Sununu, Bush was speaking at a “welcome” rally – a nonpolitical appearance that the White House frequently schedules alongside fund-raisers. Adding the official event allows the costs of the president’s travel to be billed in part to taxpayers.

There was no such “official” event in Boston. The GOP and the Romney campaign were paying for Bush’s travel to Boston, said White House spokeswoman Anne Womack.

The fund-raisers were Bush’s 61st and 62nd of the year. His total take on behalf of Republican candidates topped $134 million as of Friday.

Last week alone, Bush gathered nearly $15 million in GOP donor dollars. First lady Laura Bush plans to get into the act as well in Maine on Monday for a rare fund-raising appearance on behalf of GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

Cheney was raising money for three Republicans in Georgia on Friday: House candidates Phil Gingrey, Calder Clay and Max Burns. His first event, for Gingrey, raised more than $200,000.

Even as he travels away from Washington for a long weekend of relaxing and politicking, the issue most occupying Bush’s White House – how to deal with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein – loomed nearby.

The president planned to devote his weekly radio address Saturday to that topic.

Although Bush is due back at the White House by early Sunday afternoon, he heads out again Monday for Cincinnati, where he plans to give an address laying out the threat against Saddam on the one-year anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan.