Fundraising in the presidential contest has zoomed past the $1 billion mark, fueled by the dozens of super-wealthy Americans bankrolling super PACs that have acted as shadow campaigns for White House contenders. Presidential candidates and the super PACs closely aligned with them had raised a little more than $1 billion through the end of February, newly released campaign reports show. By comparison, the presidential fundraising by candidates and their super PACs had hit $402.7 million at this point in the 2012 election, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute. The price tag of the White House contest puts it roughly on par with the value of Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox, which Forbes this week pegged as worth $1.05 billion, but it’s far less than the nearly $7 billion American consumers spent last year to celebrate Halloween. New figures show that super PACs and their super-wealthy patrons are footing more of the cost of running for the presidency. Super PACs now account for nearly 40% of all presidential fundraising, up from about 22% at this point four years ago.
In 2008, the last election in which neither a sitting president nor vice president sought the White House, candidates had raised $812 million at this point in the campaign, the institute’s data show. Super PACs, authorized by a pair of federal court rulings in 2010, did not exist during the 2008 campaign.
Eight years later, the nearly two dozen men and women who have run for the presidency in 2016 had collected far less: $623.8 million. That reflects, in part, the difference in the kinds of candidates running this year, said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute.
Full Article: Presidential race surges past $1 billion mark.