Dem
51
GOP
49
Campaigns raise vast amounts of money. This year, both major-party candidates will probably pass $1 billion each by the end. But does all that spending buy a lot of votes? Probably not. The overwhelming majority of voters just look at the little (D) or (R) and make a decision based on that. Seeing some TV ad 50 times doesn't make much difference. But there are a small number of voters who are either genuinely on the fence, or simply not paying any attention to politics, and all that money is really aimed at them.
Does money bring victory? It is hard to say, really. One study of congressional races done in 2018 by FiveThirtyEight shows that the candidate who spend the most usually won:
So it is clear, right? Actually, no. Don't fall into the trap of confusing correlation with causation. Incumbents generally attract more money because they are better known than their challengers. And they generally win because they are incumbents. That they also raised more money is actually peripheral. In all races, leading in the polls tends to pull in more money because people like to bet on a winner, and then more money only helps the leader stay ahead. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way. A district or state's PVI matters a lot. Democratic donors don't tend to dump money in Wyoming and Republican donors don't shower candidates in Hawaii with money. They know it is pointless. As a result, Republicans in Wyoming have more money than Democrats in Wyoming and they win, but it is not due to the money. Ditto Democrats having more money than Republicans in Hawaii.
Does advertising make a difference? A little. There was one actual controlled experiment done. It was in 2006, during Rick Perry's reelection campaign for governor of Texas. Researchers convinced Perry to advertise heavily in randomly selected markets. Before the ads started, they polled the markets. After the ads ran, they polled again. A week after the ads stopped, they polled again. What they learned is that the day the ads stopped, there was a noticeable bump for Perry, but a week later, it was gone and it was as if no ads had run at all. Also, it is believed that while ads may matter for a House or Senate candidate who is totally unknown, for presidential candidates ads matter less because the voters already know who they are and aren't swayed easily by ads. Only for that tiny sliver of the population that is undecided or not paying attention might the ads matter.
This doesn't mean that money is totally unimportant, just that ads are probably overrated. Campaigns don't spend all their money on ads. They open offices to hand out yard signs and bumper stickers and sell merch. They do phone banking. They pay people to go door to door to hand out campaign literature. They pay people to register voters. The get-out-the-vote campaigns costs money. These things do have an impact. So even in a presidential race, money does matter.
That said, let's get to the actual news here. Kamala Harris has now raised $500 million in the month since her campaign began on July 21. She expects that to grow to $600 million by the end of August, since the money keeps pouring in. This includes both the campaign and its allied PACs, and the reporting doesn't indicate whether this amount is simply from small donors or includes the $150 million large donors pledged to her. It definitely does not include the $90 million she inherited from the Biden campaign.
Still, it is certainly the case that a big chunk of the $500 million consists of donations to the campaign. In the past, campaign money was more valuable than super PAC money because candidates got lower television advertising rates than others. That is not so important for Harris, though, because the bulk of her money is not going to television ads. A bunch of her spending is going to digital ads. Google and Facebook aren't required by law to give candidates the best deal. Also, some of her spending will be on get-out-the-vote drives, and people hired to run them don't really care where the money to pay them came from. Still, $500 million or $600 million or $750 million or $840 million or whatever it is, is a lot of money. You could buy 1/80th of a failing social media platform with that kind of coin.
The other side is not standing still. Reclusive Republican MAGAdonor Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, keeps tossing money into Donald Trump's begging bowl. It is now being reported that in July, he tossed in another $50 million, bringing his total for this cycle to $115 million. He must like Trump a whole bunch. Or maybe he is hoping for a big tax cut. He probably knows that the one Trump signed in 2017 will be expiring during the term of the next president and Mellon might just prefer Trump to be sitting at the Resolute Desk when the next tax bill lands there. In any event, he is by far the biggest Republican donor of this cycle, putting Miriam Adelson to shame. Sheldon is probably rolling over in his grave.
Now onto a key Senate race. The Ohio Republican Senate candidate, Mercedes-Benz car dealer Bernie Moreno, has donated $25 million to... Bernie Moreno. He is going to spend it on television, radio, and other ads in his race to unseat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). He will need some help because the most recent half dozen polls have shown Brown ahead 3-5 points. Up until now, Moreno has barely been on the air. Maybe it is a good strategy to save your pennies until September, when most voters start to pay attention. On the other hand, if you are a complete unknown, like Moreno, running against a popular and very well known three-term senator going for a fourth term, letting him define you rather than you defining you, might not be the best strategy. In any event, Moreno is starting to pour his own money into the race. (V)