Billions of dollars are spent every presidential election year by candidates. All this money comes with many questions. Where does it go? Why do political candidates need so much? And finally, can more money mean a higher percentage chance of winning the presidential election?
One thing is clear: Campaign money is a major factor in elections, including this year’s.
“Campaign finance matters,” Northwestern University law professor Michael Kang told NPR in November. “It’s the way that candidates fund their outreach and messaging to voters.”
Republican Donald Trump and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden remain the frontrunners in the 2024 presidential election, and the monetary breakdowns of both candidates’ campaigns are public information.
According to The Associated Press, President Biden’s campaign has $155 million cash on hand as of March. Trump’s funds pale in comparison: As of late January, he had nearly a third of what Biden’s total with only $36.6 million on hand, according to the AP.
Some of Biden’s top donors include several national labor unions and Euclidian Capital, a hedge fund founded by billionaire mathematician James Simons, USA Today reported in March. The money that goes toward these presidential campaigns typically stems from major, typically wealthy, donors like Simons who may seek to influence politicians through lobbying. Biden has raised approximately $19.1 million from New York billionaires’ donations, according to Newsday in April.
Similarly, Trump’s top donors are banking fortune heir Timothy Mellon and Texas-based oil drilling company CrownQuest Operating. Mellon has made a contribution of approximately $16.5 million, according to USA Today.
While the amount a candidate receives may seem unimportant to young voters, donors can tell us about a candidate’s values. For example, one of Trump’s biggest donors is an oil and gas drilling company, demonstrating to us he likely agrees with the values that company holds. Watching the donors of a candidate highlights the candidate’s values behind the public stage.
All this money goes to different places, depending on who’s running the campaign. Right now Biden’s campaign funds are primarily going to digital advertisement. While a strong platform for drawing voters’ support, it’s also a pricey one. The second biggest expenditure for Biden’s campaign is on his staff.
According to The New York Times, the Biden campaign plans to raise $2 billion by November. Additionally, Biden is expected to use anti-Trump messaging for his campaign advertisements as the election creeps closer. He will also use campaign money to pay campaign workers.
Trump’s campaign funds, on the other hand, aren’t quite going toward convincing voters. Trump, who is currently facing four criminal indictments, is putting the majority of his campaign money toward his legal fees. In January, NBC News reported more than an estimated $27 million of Trump’s campaign fundraising money was put toward his legal fees, such as paying his lawyers.
It’s hard to tell just how helpful extra funding is during presidential elections. Unknown amounts of so-called dark money from undisclosed donors, often funneled through nonprofit organizations, can create issues with predicting any connections between money and campaign success because citizens can never truly know how much money has gone into a campaign.
However, for seats in the House of Representatives, more than 90% of candidates who spent more money than their opponents won, according to a 2018 study by FiveThirtyEight.
There is truly no way to tell whether strong fundraising can correlate to a successful campaign, but nonetheless, the usage of campaign funds throughout the 2024 election has been unique.
Emily J. Aguirre is a sophomore at Santa Fe Prep. Contact her at emjazz19@gmail.com.
The Santa Fe New Mexican observes its 175th anniversary with a series highlighting some of the major stories and figures that have appeared in the paper's pages through its history. The collection also includes archival photo galleries.
