Fundraising effect on elections: Can Money Dictate Election Results?

Dana Gaudioso

Staff Writer

A common belief among political scientists is that money is a crucial necessity when trying to win a presidential election. Both United States President Joe Biden and former U.S. President Donald Trump are highly aware of this fact and have spent months raising millions of dollars for their presidential campaigns. Election campaigns have never been more expensive. According to The Economist, “with nearly every American election cycle new spending records are broken.” Why has it become so expensive to campaign in the U.S., and does money really correlate with winning an election?

The U.S. is unique when it comes to spending excessive millions on political elections. France and Norway, for example, do not spend nearly as much money on funding political races because of laws in place restricting the amount of money that can be spent on an election. In Norway, it is illegal to broadcast political ads on the television or radio. The U.S. operates much differently from the rest of the world. CNN reports that in the U.S., “candidates and their supporters can buy as much television time as they can afford” because the country has neither a cap on the amount of money candidates can spend in political elections or restrictions on what types of aids can be used in political races. This forces American politicians to spend an unneeded fortune on political elections and creates the perception that the only way to win a political election is to spend the most money.

Part of the reason for this is that there is in fact a positive correlation between the candidate that spends the most money on a political race and the elected candidate. According to ABC News, it is shown that “more than 90 percent of candidates who spend the most win…” their political elections. The candidate that fundraises the least amount of money rarely wins. Through this perspective, it would appear as if money does play a major part in who gets elected to office, but many political scientists argue the winning candidates spending the most money on their political races is correlation, not causation. 

The most significant deciding factor when it comes to winning an election is whether the person running is an incumbent. It is unlikely for an incumbent to lose their political races because the general public typically votes for the person that they are most familiar with. This gives incumbents a huge advantage over other political candidates because the general public is already acquainted with their policies and how they operate in office. 

It has also been proven that other political aids have very little effect on the outcome of a political race. Political ads might increase a candidate’s popularity for a brief period, but according to ABC News, “Within a week after ads stopped running, it was like no one had ever seen them.” Political ads particularly seem to have almost no effect when it comes to presidential campaigns, because the public doesn’t need advertisements to tell them about the candidates running for office. However, Politico reports that “the bulk of the president’s spending last month came as advertising.” As such, ads having little effect on election outcomes doesn’t stop politicians from using them in the election campaigns. 

Even though maximizing money spent is not guaranteed to result in an election victory, President Biden and Former President Trump both have still amassed large amounts within their political campaigns. “According to NPR, President Biden’s team ended March with $192 million available for spending, well exceeding the Democratic Party’s goal of $90 million for his campaign. This result is believed to have been caused by President Biden’s intense State of the Union speech, which helped boost grassroots fundraising and brought in millions of dollars in just one night. In the same month, former President Trump was only able to raise $93 million for his political campaign. While this is an impressive amount of money to raise for a political election, Trump’s fundraising team wanted to raise more to “narrow the gap so they can compete with Biden’s field effort and advertising campaigns,” according to The Washington Post. 

Money seems to have little effect on the outcome of a presidential election, but that does not stop President Biden and former president Trump from using a large amount of money on their political campaigns in hopes that it would give them a better chance at winning. 

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