Politics Explained

US Election Explainer: How important is fundraising in US Politics?

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Harris has outraised Trump but money alone doesn't win the White House

Find out about the role of fundraising in US Politics, how much candidates have to raise to run for office, who gives that money and what they want in return...

  • The 2024 US Election might be the most expensive in history

  • Anybody can donate but big money is dominating more than ever

  • The costs involved in running a campaign are enormous

  • Yet Harris has gained an edge on Trump where fundraising's concerned

  • Check out our 2024 US Presidential Election Live Blog here

  • View Betfair Exchange politics markets as you have never seen before at Betfair Predicts


US Election 2024 might be most expensive in history

OpenSecrets reportedly recently that the cost of the 2024 Federal Election is projected to reach over $15.9 billion, a record for US politics.

The previous record-holding cost from 2020 of $14 billion was almost double what was spent in the 2016 election, demonstrating the sharp increase in campaign financing in recent years.

However significant and ballooning costs - and the attendant fundraising efforts - are not new in US politics.

An average winning candidate for the US House of Representatives in 1990 spent around $407,600 - yet winners in 2022 spent $2.79 million on average.

The figures for the Upper House - the Senate - are even more mind-boggling. While in 1990 a winning Senate candidate might spend an average of $3.87 million, they now spend an average of $26.53 million.

As we have written before, Americans are voting for more than their President on the 5th of November - meaning that a huge number of races are attracting serious money. All of this contributes to the unimaginable overall figure.


Any citizen can donate to an election campaign

In theory, any American citizen can donate to a campaign that they want to support, and many do.

You will often hear candidates tout the proportion of their campaign contributions coming from donors who gave less than $200. This is often said to signal the candidate's popularity with the working classes. In truth, this is a bit of a cliched folksy stat that campaigns love to roll out as they announce their financial filings.

Now, the United States is a big country with a huge population - so, yes, small donors make up a significant proportion of campaign finance.

In 2020, donations of less than $200 were the single largest source of funding for presidential candidates.

Six candidates raised more than $10 million from small donations - one-time Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden. Donald Trump also joins them as the sixth to have broken this barrier.

Bernie Sanders in fact raised almost 60% of his campaign finances from small donors.

These donors give to campaigns who they want to support outside of their choice in the ballot box.

Yet on the other side, there are seriously moneyed interests who funnel millions into campaign finance. The argument is that they do so in order to get something in return.

Both Biden and Trump received less than half of their campaign financing from small-money donors in 2020, meaning the rest was coming from somewhere else.


Big money dominates and gets its way

Yet while small-money donors are indeed a large proportion of campaign financing, snapping at their heels are powerful big-businesses and the wealthy.

In the 2024 election so far, the biggest 10 individual donors have contributed a total of $599 million - a truly staggering sum. What's more significant is that in this election, the top five mega-donors have all been supporting the Republican Party.

This matters, not only because individual donors are likely to gain outsized clout with key candidates, but also because it's been shown in the past that campaign finance has been an effective way of swaying policies in a particular direction.

For instance, a 2017 study found that "unpopular industries" tended to give larger political contributions to political candidates than other industries, implying an expectation of special treatment.

In a 2022 study, it was shown that billionaires were using campaign financing to influence policies around estate tax, capital gains tax, and carbon taxes.


Where does all the money go?

Running an election campaign is expensive for any candidate in the United States, but particularly the presidential campaigns.

First of all, the campaigns try to hire the best-in-class of political campaigners. These political animals come at a price, yet that doesn't factor in the additional cost of staffing up in key states, as well as providing for many thousands of volunteer activists.

Back in August - three months out from the election - the Harris campaign added 150 new staff in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the so-called "Blue Wall".

This was in addition to a whopping 200,000 volunteers who joined the Harris campaign in the week-and-a-half following her handover from Biden. Yet all this manpower comes at a cost.

Then, there is the hugely competitive advertising market in the United States. In the months before an election, television breaks and social media are blitzed by campaigns from different candidates for election.

Just taking the presidential election alone, it was reported last month that the two candidates and their allies reserved over half-a-billion dollars of television and radio advertising for the final seven weeks of the campaign.

Add into the mix the cost of running such a huge campaign at fairly short notice, travel, hosting rallies, and commissioning whopper polls multiple times a wee, and you can see how it all stacks up.


How are Trump and Harris doing so far?

It was announced yesterday that the Harris campaign had raised a total of $1 billion since she entered the campaign on July 21st.

Though Presidential campaigns are expensive, fundraising at such a fast pace is unheard of in any election before this one.

This has left Trump trailing. While he holds an advantage with the big-money donors, his cash-on-hand and fundraising totals are well below the Harris campaign's.

Yet money doesn't win the presidency. With both parties fairly well-balanced in terms of their fundraising prowess historically, it will still come down to the few thousand voters in key swing states who may once again decide the Presidential election.

The latest odds show Trump and Harris in a furious battle on the betting markets, with each trading places to become the favourite over the last few weeks. As of now, Trump is the 5/61.84 favourite to win, while Harris trails at 6/15.


Now read Betfair US election live blog for the latest betting news



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