Election spending in 2024 is expected to exceed the previous record

In contrast, neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump are expected to have spent or raised $1 billion by the end of September.

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Combined, Bloomberg and his 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer spent over $1.4 billion of their own funds to self-fund their 2020 primary campaigns. Even excluding this unprecedented influx of equity, Democratic candidates in the 2020 primary still outperformed Republican candidates in the 2024 Republican primary by about $500 million.

Fundraising trends for the 2024 presidential election

Fundraising trends are going in different directions for Harris and Trump. President Joe Biden’s replacement with Harris on the ballot has led to a huge surge in fundraising on the Democratic side.

While Harris did not disclose September fundraising totals, Harris and the Democratic Party are believed to have raised about $1 billion or more from July to September. This is based on information from the Harris campaign, which documents weekend fundraising totals, as well as data for July and August.

Trump and the Republican Party raised $430 million during the same period, including the fundraising totals announced by the campaign and party committee for the month of September as well as the fundraising totals reported to the FEC in previous months. If the fundraising trend continues, it will likely result in Harris exceeding the Biden campaign’s 2020 revenue, while Trump could struggle to match his 2020 campaign results.

In the final stretch before Election Day, the Harris campaign has not yet disclosed its September fundraising totals, but at the end of August Harris and the Democratic Party reported cash on hand of $404 million. Trump and the Republican Party said they had $283 million at the end of September. Based on previous trends, OpenSecrets expects this amount to be spent before Election Day, in addition to the funds raised in October, which could easily exceed another $500 million. OpenSecrets analysis of 2020 FEC data shows that the two general election campaigns, along with the RNC and DNC, spent over $1.1 billion between October 1 and November 23.

External spending has increased, in favor of the Republicans

As OpenSecrets has reported, external spending for 2024 significantly exceeds previous cycles.

As of Oct. 7, outside spending — largely through independent spending purchased by super PACs and hybrid PACs — reached $2.6 billion, nearly $1 billion more than outside groups had spent through the same date in 2020, OpenSecrets reportedly predicts that external spending in 2024 will exceed spending in 2020 before Election Day, even taking inflation into account.

This outside spending has clearly benefited conservatives so far, a change from 2020, when liberal groups spent more money than conservatives. As has become standard practice, the groups spending the most money are Make America Great Again Inc.’s super PACs affiliated with presidential candidates.

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Do not fill out this field if you are a person who is spending more than $239 million supporting Trump, while Future Forward has spent over $212 million supporting Democratic presidential candidates.

Cryptocurrency-linked super PAC Fairshake and its affiliates have spent $123 million supporting both Democratic and Republican candidates, an unusual pattern among top-spending super PACs.

While outside fundraising groups are generally required to disclose donors to the Federal Election Commission, there are exceptions.

Future Forward, the pro-Harris super PAC, discloses donors to the FEC, but its largest donor is a dark money nonprofit, Future Forward USA Action, and is therefore classified by OpenSecrets as a partially disclosing organization.

On the congressional side, all four super PACs tied to party leadership are also partial disclosure groups. Together, they reported receiving nearly $72 million in donations from their affiliated dark money groups. This obfuscation of the true source of funding for super PACs is a method commonly used by political groups to avoid meaningful disclosures, and we continue to see significant spending by groups that fail to disclose.

Congressional elections bring in more money than in 2020

While the race for the White House typically dominates coverage during the presidential cycle, 2024 congressional candidates are also attracting record spending. The cap on donations from individuals to candidates increased from $2,800 to $3,300 per election over that four-year period. That means an individual can now donate $1,000 more to a federal candidate over the course of an election cycle than they could four years ago.

Since the Senate is held by Democrats and the House of Representatives by Republicans, both parties have spending advantages in the chamber they hold.

In the House of Representatives, the spending gap is small. But in the Senate, Democrats outspent Republicans by more than $150 million. In every Senate race, the Democratic candidate has raised/spent at least 75% more than his Republican opponent, even in elections where neither candidate is an incumbent.

While Republicans currently have more money than Democrats in the House, that trend may not continue in the next few months. Democrats running in the general election have collectively outspent Republicans, suggesting that Republicans may have had more active primaries or spent more of their money earlier.

Democrats running in the general election have, on average, about $175,000 more cash than Republicans. This generally includes fundraising through the end of June, although some candidates in later primaries have reported more recent fundraising information.

Where does the money come from?

Although Bloomberg isn’t spending any money on his own campaign this cycle, he is still among the top donors of the cycle – behind five conservative donors. This is the first cycle in which the top five major donors all support Republicans, adding to a major fundraising advantage that conservative outside spending groups have seen so far.

The top 10 individual donors have contributed $599 million so far for the 2024 cycle – 7% of all money raised. If you expand the list to the top 100 donors, it turns out that they are responsible for 16% of all money raised, and if you expand the list even further to the top 1% of all donors, it’s a whopping 50% of all money raised . In contrast, all Donors who give less than $200 represent only 16% of all funds raised. With conservative groups outperforming their liberal counterparts in outside spending this cycle, it is no surprise that the top five individual donors to outside groups are conservative donors.

The overall share of fundraising from small donors has been around 20% across several presidential cycles, with a significant increase in the 2020 cycle.

Democrats running for federal office in 2024 have raised significantly more from small donors giving less than $200 than their Republican counterparts. So far, 28% of donations to Democratic candidates have come from small donors, compared to 19% to Republicans.

Doug Weber, Dan Auble, Andrew Mayersohn, Olivia Buckley and Anna Massoglia contributed to this report.