Take a guess — think of a number — how much money was spent in the 2024 U.S. campaign cycle? The country elected a president, 435 U.S. representatives, and 34 U.S. senators.
If you guessed $5 billion, you would be wrong. It was closer to $15 billion. That’s more than some yearly state budgets.
Joanna Zdanys is the Deputy Director of the Elections and Government Program at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.
She said the money mostly comes from super wealthy donors and special interest groups.
“In 2024, about $1.9 billion came from dark money groups that aren't required to disclose their donors,” Zdanys said.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, candidates mostly relied on their own personal wealth to finance campaigns. By the early 20th century, corporate contributions to political campaigns were banned. Special interest groups formed political action committees, or PACs, to raise money for the candidates they supported, but they could only accept a limited amount from each donor.
The ban stood until 2010, when the Supreme Court released its landmark Citizens United decision. The decision meant corporations could give unlimited amounts of money to campaigns.
“The result has been that we've seen an explosion of private wealth in our elections to a degree that we really have not seen in the modern era,” Zdanys said.
After Citizens United, Super PACs came into play. Unlike traditional PACs, they can't donate directly to candidates, but they can accept unlimited amounts of money from donors and then spend it on advertising for the races and issues they support and against those they don’t.
They’re supposed to be regulated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). But Zdanys said the FEC has been ineffective at policing them.
“An increasing trend that we've seen since 2010 is that candidates are frequently working in alignment with these nominally outside entities that are allowed to take in unlimited amounts of money and to spend unlimited amounts in support of their favored candidate or in opposition to an opponent,” Zdanys said.
Zdanys said the explosion of private campaign funding hasn’t benefited everyday Americans or candidates who want to run campaigns without big donors.
“The influence of wealth in government impacts how government responds, who has access to office, whose concerns and priorities are heard,” Zdanys said.
Public campaign financing exists in 14 states, including Connecticut and New York. Each program is different, but generally, small donations are matched with public funds.
A public campaign finance program exists for presidential races. However, John McCain (R) was the last to use it (in 2008, before the Citizens United decision).
“The realities of what it takes financially to run for office, and the kinds of enormous outside spending that we're seeing in elections, have really changed the tune there,” Zdanys said.
Candidates across the political spectrum have taken pledges to avoid taking money from super PACs and pledged to push for campaign finance reform laws.
However, it’s not a top priority for either of the major parties right now.
