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Just eight months after she was elected to her first term in Congress, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords already has raised about $1 million to fund what she hopes will be a return trip in 2008, according to her latest re-election campaign financial disclosures.

Giffords has $941,489 in the bank, after expenses, with 16 months still to go before the general election. That's already more than she had raised at this time last year, just months before she was chosen to represent eastern Tucson and Southeastern Arizona.

In fact, Giffords has proved to be such a successful fundraiser that she has the fifth-highest amount of cash on hand among the 53 freshman elected in 2006. Four other Democratic newcomers out-paced her, led by Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who had about $189,000 more than Giffords.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a third-term Democrat, has only $85,000 on hand. The significantly lower figure reflected the fact that Grijalva has yet to face a competitive race in his Southwestern Arizona district since taking office in 2003.

Rep. Harry Mitchell — like Giffords, a freshman Democrat from Arizona — has roughly $530,000 so far in preparation for a re-election bid in his Phoenix-area congressional district.

More than half of Giffords' money — $620,000 — is from individual contributions. The rest came from 55 political action committees.

Her $941,489 balance includes money raised since the election plus cash carried over from her last campaign, minus about $307,000 in campaign spending for this election cycle.

Grijalva reported $107,000 in spending for the current election cycle.

Giffords' campaign war chest now sits at more than double what it was for the last reporting period, ending in March, when she had a little more than $400,000 — a warning to Republicans that it won't be easy or cheap for them to win back the seat held by Jim Kolbe for decades.

Giffords was elected in the 8th Congressional District last year in a race in which she spent $2.4 million.

Both parties are preparing for what is expected to be another expensive, competitive race, although Giffords doesn't yet have an '08 challenger.

As a sign of things to come, though, national Republicans and some political organizations who support Giffords already have begun pumping money into Southern Arizona.