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Graphic Truth: The rising cost of US elections
The 2024 federal election cycle is on course to be the costliest in US history, surpassing record levels of spending in 2020, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics. Federal election cycles have been flooded by huge amounts of money for decades, but spending skyrocketed after the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision in 2010, which held that political spending is a form of protected speech.
Citizens United opened the door for corporations, unions, and other groups to spend unlimited funds on elections – as long as they don’t formally coordinate with candidates or political parties – and paved the way for the creation of super PACs.
Super PACs differ from traditional PACs, or Political Action Committees, which can directly contribute to candidates and political parties (with limits on total contributions).
Elections have not only become more expensive since Citizens United, but they’ve also become less transparent in terms of the sources of spending. This is thanks to what are known as dark money groups, which are generally nonprofits that aren’t required to publicly disclose their donors. Even though super PACs are required to disclose their donors, the funding they receive from dark money groups keeps the original sources hidden.
Does money have too much influence on US politics? Should there be more limits on how much can be spent? We would love to hear your thoughts.
U.S. President Joe Biden removes his sunglasses before speaking to members of the news media before boarding Marine One for travel to California from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 20, 2024.
Biden’s $130 million momentum
Were President Joe Biden to win reelection this November, he’d be 86 years old when finishing his second term. That’s part of why a startling 86% of Americans tell pollsters he’s too old to serve again.
But 86 is only one Biden number of note. Another is 130 million. That’s the total number of dollars his campaign has raised to date after raking in $42 million in the month of January alone. In fact, Biden’s $130 million haul is the most any Democrat has ever raised to this point in a campaign. (Donald Trump ended 2023 with $66 million and hasn’t yet reported January totals. He also has a few legal bills to pay.)
That’s why, whatever his popularity numbers, despite the flood of recent stories about possible Democratic Party alternatives to Biden, and whatever embarrassments next week’s Michigan primary may hold in store for a president whose firm support for Israel has angered much of that state’s sizeable Arab-American population, Biden won’t be easy to beat.
It’s also another reason we hold to our view that the only presidential polling questions that really matter are: Will you vote? Who will you vote for?