Trump vs. Harris 2024: Which campaign raised more money?

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have both been on a fundraising spree in recent weeks.

Harris has raised questions since President Joe Biden announced his decision to step down as the Democratic nominee. Over $310 million Her campaign received 66% of its donations, 66% of which came from first-time donors. Democratic super PAC Future Forward also said it had received $150 million commitment In the first 24 hours since Biden ended his campaign, Democrats had raised Over $24 million Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz Will be her running mate. Large donors, such as co-founders Reid Hoffman and billionaire entrepreneur Mark CubanMajor corporations such as PayPal and PayPal have expressed support for her choice and hinted that they may provide more funding to her campaign.

All of this has largely erased the Republicans’ fundraising advantage.

Trump Raised more money than Biden Before the president dropped out of the race. June (a month after he was elected) Convicted of 34 felonies), whose campaign received111.8 millionThe Republican National Committee had its best month for fundraising in years, bringing in $66 million. In the wake of the assassination and the RNC’s pageantry, Trump’s fundraising totals surpassed June’s totals, with a reported $1.3 billion. $137 million In July.

But how much will that money actually affect the results?

Presidential campaigns have always been expensive, but the money needed to run a successful presidential campaign has skyrocketed since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling. Citizens United v. Federal Election CommissionThe decision allows corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections, often through super PACs that operate independently of campaigns. The most expensive presidential election in history In American history.

“Presidential elections are incredibly expensive, billions of dollars have been spent so far. You need enough money to run a viable campaign,” said Dan Weiner, director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

The funds are used to support staff and field offices across the country; place ads on television, newspapers, radio and social platforms; conduct polls and research; and reach out to voters through rallies, door-to-door visits and more.

Both grassroots support and big-dollar donors are crucial to financing a presidential campaign. Citizens United But grassroots donations are expressions of enthusiasm: They don’t necessarily translate into 1:1 votes, but they can signal to big donors which candidates are most likely to be elected.

Brendan Glavin, deputy director of research at OpenSecrets, said both Harris and Trump need to keep the money flowing. While it’s not early in the cycle — Trump has been running since November 2022 — the most intense weeks of the election are yet to come. Now, candidates typically travel to battleground states more frequently, hold more rallies, fine-tune their strategies through more frequent polls, and increase advertising and canvassing efforts.

While recent events have galvanized voters in both parties, previous campaigns suggest the most lucrative days may be yet to come. There are 13 weeks until Election Day, and Biden raised about 60% of his total fundraising in the 10 weeks leading up to the 2020 election.

However, money isn’t everything. While the winner of a presidential race often has an advantage in fundraising, that’s not always the case. And large piles of cash ultimately can’t make up for poor spending decisions or a bad candidate.

Biden outspent Trump in 2020. But former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton spent far more than Trump, and she still lost the election. Her campaign invested heavily in states she didn’t need to win, like Arizona, while ignoring the Rust Belt states, which ultimately cost her the election.

There are also well-funded campaigns that never really get off the ground due to weak candidates.

“You can put lipstick on a pig and it’s not going to be a good candidate,” said Ray La Raja, associate director of the UMass Poll and a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “No amount of money can make a bad candidate truly good.”

Take former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent $1.3 billion on his four-month Democratic primary campaign in 2020. $1 billion His money. “Ultimately, primary voters didn’t respond to him,” Glavine said. “He had the money. He made his name known. But he didn’t get the response.”

The Clinton and Bloomberg campaigns show that money is just one piece of the puzzle. Research shows that challengers Get more out of campaign spending better than the incumbent, and for any candidate, Early spending is more effective than late spendingIncumbent presidents don’t benefit much from campaign spending because voters usually already know who they are and there isn’t much room for them to change their minds. Studies show that the more incumbent presidents spend, They are more likely to fail — These expenditures themselves are often a sign that they are in trouble.

Harris has some advantages as an incumbent because she has the Biden campaign apparatus behind her, but in other ways she fits the profile of a challenger better.

“That little bit of marginal value is higher for the challenger. And she’s better suited for the role because let’s face it: Most people don’t know what the vice president does,” Larraía said.

Harris is still in the process of introducing herself — and her new running mate, Waltz — to the American public. She has just been thrust into the spotlight, with the opportunity to shape her image in ways that a regular candidate might not be able to. As a result, her campaign is currently investing heavily in advertising. $50 million for paid media before the Democratic National Convention in August.

“One of the well-known dynamics of a presidential campaign is that you try to identify your opponent as early as possible,” Weiner said. “I have no doubt that what the Harris campaign wanted to do — and part of the reason why it was so critical that they raised so much money so quickly — was to identify her before the Trump campaign identified her.”

Americans may have forgotten what Trump’s presidency was like, but as a former president, Trump is already fairly clear in voters’ minds, more suited to being an incumbent than a challenger. His strategy, therefore, is to capitalize on that existing approval—using a Offensive advertising.

But ad spending has diminishing returns because the media provides so much free coverage to presidential candidates. Trump may not have spent as much as Clinton in 2016, but he certainly benefited from the media attention that year — and so did the media, which experienced “Trump hit” viewers and readers. This year, Trump successfully used big media events to raise money, such as his conviction or assassination attempt. After Biden withdrew, Harris did the same.

Their fundraising success — and electoral success — may well depend on whether that momentum continues. Besides, at a certain point, “money starts to have diminishing returns,” Weiner said. There are only so many ads candidates can buy, doors they can knock on and rallies they can hold to put their best foot forward to voters. Once candidates and their positions are well understood, they can only hope voters like them.

“If you’ve already raised enough money, raising more money isn’t going to do you much good,” he said.