Presidential candidates fundraise money for their campaigns through a variety of sources, including small, large, and organizational donors. Many also rely on the indirect 🐭support of political action committees (PACs).

Running for president of the United States is an expensive proposition. In the 2012 presidential campaign, incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney spent over $1 billion each, in what was the most expensive presidential election ever at the time.

The overall cost of the 2016 White House race totaled approximately $2.4 billion (versus 2012’s total spending of $2.6 billion). However, the 2020 election blew all previous spending records out of the water. In total, the election cost an unprecedented $14.4 billion.

American citizens of every politi🎐cal persuasion may wonder justifiably where all that money comes from and how it’s spent. Let’s have a look.

Super PACs

A major source of campaℱig🥂n financing is the independent expenditure-only committees, more commonly known as super PACs.

The Supreme Court ruling in the 2010 case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission allowed these organizat෴ions🧸 to spend unlimited amounts of money on their preferred candidate.

They are not required to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:fully disclose the names of th🧸eir contributors, and they are prohibited by law from coordinating their political activities with their candi👍date of choice.

The money spent by super PACs is part of a presidential campaign, although it technically does not represent money spent by the candidate.

According to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks political funding and spending, as of October 2024, around 2,400 groups organized as super PACs reported total receipts of $3.5 billion and total independent expenditures of $2.05 billion in the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:2024 election cycle.

Fundraising

Money can also come from 🍬large donors, small donors, and organizational donations.

2016 Election

During the 2016 election, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton raised more than $563 million, with a super PAC, Priorities USA Action, raising over $192 million of that amount.

According to OpenSecrets, approximately 53% of Clinton’s raised campaign funds were large individual contributions. Bernie Sanders, who refused the support of super PACs, raised close to $230 million. Of that, 58% came from small individual contributions.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Republican Ted Cruz raised $89.5 million himself and over $53 million was donated to super PACs that supported him.

During the 2016 election, Republican Donald Trump was largely self-funded, with 77% of his campaign funds coming from loans he had taken out; the super PACs in his favor raised a relatively paltry $71 million.

2020 Election

Trump began raising money for his 2020 campaign shortly aft🅺er he was elected. While some experts predicted that it would be impossible for any candidate to out-raise him, Joe Biden’s campaign beat fundraising records and ended up surpassing the Trump campaign’s fundraising haul during the final months of the election cycle.

In 2020, Biden raised approximately $1.04 billion in candidate committee money and $580 million in outside money in getting elected. Trump raised approximately $774 million in candidate committee money and $314 million in outside money in defeat.

2024 Election

In his second run for a second term, Trump raised $1.45 billion, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) figures reported as of Nov. 25, 2024, and Dec. 9, 2024. Of that total, $463,662,725 was raised by the campaign committee of Donald J. Trump for President, 2024, and $988,954,718 was raised by outside groups.

Large contributions made up approximately 70% of Trump's funding. Small contributions (less than $200) represented approximately 29%.

Notably, Elon Musk gave $238 million to a super PAC he created to support Trump, called the America PAC (Texas). In all, that PAC raised over $263 million.

Kamala Harris' campaign surpassed Trump's in fundraising, ending up with over $2 billion, as of the same reporting dates. Campaign committee funds totaled $1,151,260,254. Outside groups that supported her run raised $850,031,885.

Large contributions made up approximately 60% of Harris' funding. Small contributions represented a bit over 40%.

How Money Is Spent

2020 Election

According to OpenSecrets, data released by the FEC showed that in 2020, 56.1% (or $855.1 trillion) of all donations was spent on media advertisements, with fundraising for donations coming in at 10.2%.

Campaign expenses such as for consulting, events, and surveys made up 8.6%, and 8.1% went toward salaries. Roughly 6.8% of costs went toward miscellaneous expenses, 6.2% went for administrative costs, and nearly 4% for strategy and research.

2024 Election

The greatest amount of spending by both the Trump and Harris campaigns was on media purchases; Trump's camp spent 64% of funds and Harris' spent almost 79%. The next largest expenditure for Trump was on fundraising (about 13%). For Harris, it was administrative expenses (about 5%).

The Bottom Line

To obtain the money necessary to run for president, candidates draw funding from dono💖rs large and small and rely on super PACs to join the effort through advertising and other political activities.

The🐓 bulk of the campaign funds collected are spent on media, including print, broadcast, and internet advertising. However, having a lot of money is no guarantee of a successful run for the presidency, either in the primary races or after the party candidates have been nominated. 

Detailed monthly data on campaign spending is filed with the FEC by both major party candidates. Its comprehensive reports on campaign spending are available online to the pu♐blic.