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The White House in Washington DC: multi-billion dollar election campaign
Photo: Yegor Aleyev / ITAR-TASS / imago images
Elections in the US are expensive, especially this year.
By November 3, Democrats and Republicans are expected to spend nearly $ 14 billion to convince voters of their candidates.
The election campaign would be twice as expensive as the 2016 one and will cost more than the 2012 and 2016 election campaigns combined.
The Democratic candidates and their supporters have raised a particularly large amount of money this year - and have already spent $ 5.5 billion.
If you add the money that flowed into the campaigns of billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, it was as much as 6.9 billion.
Republicans have spent $ 3.9 billion so far.
These exorbitant sums are apparently necessary.
Just the race for the presidency
between Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden will cost $ 6.6 billion, according to an estimate by the Center for Responsive Politics.
And the election campaigns for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives will therefore cost a total of $ 7.25 billion.
That adds up to a total of $ 13.85 billion.
It is important for the Democrats to win back not only the White House but also the majority in the Senate from the Republicans on November 3rd - and keep the majority in the House of Representatives.
Only then can they actually enforce their legislative proposals.
The members of the House of Representatives are elected for two years and the senators for six years.
The Senate is not elected all at once, but in blocks.
Every two years, during the midterms and during the presidential election, around a third of the seats are up for grabs.
Here is an overview of the most complex races;
the numbers come from the "Center for Responsive Politics":
The most expensive election campaign is currently being fought in North Carolina.
There the Democrat Cal Cunningham competes against the Republican and Senator Thom Tillis.
More than $ 282 million has been put into the race by major donors, lobby groups and the candidates themselves.
Cunningham has raised more than twice as many donations as its competitor Tillis.
It will be tight for Tillis, despite a sexting scandal at the end of September, Cunningham is three to six percentage points ahead of him in polls.
After all, the candidates and their allies in Iowa spent about 50 million dollars less on the Senate race: Here the election campaign costs are 236 million dollars.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst is challenged by Democrat Theresa Greenfield.
Ernst won 52 percent of the votes in her first election six years ago, now the race is open.
Surveys see Greenfield ahead, serious.
Greenfield received about twice as many donations as Ernst.
In South Carolina, prominent Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is fighting for his seat in parliament.
Jamie Harrison competes against him for the Democrats.
Harrison is the first ever Senate candidate to raise more than $ 100 million in donations.
In total, the race cost the candidates and their allies $ 209 million.
Harrison does not seem to use all the money: According to surveys, Graham is clearly ahead of his challenger.
Another Senate race managed to break the 200 million dollar mark.
In Arizona, Republican Senator Martha McSally competes against Democrat Mark Kelly.
Kelly raised more campaign fundraising, over $ 88 million, while McSally received $ 55 million in donations.
In total, the candidates and their allies also spent around $ 209 million.
McSally had taken over the seat of late Senator John McCain in 2019 after losing a Senate race in 2018.
Arizona used to be firmly in Republican hands, now Kelly is about five percentage points ahead of McSally in polls.
According to the New York Times, eight of the ten most expensive Senate races ever take place this year.
Small and medium-sized private donors are more important than any other election.
22.4 percent of the total donations now come from people who give less than $ 200 to a party, candidate, or organization.
In the United States, much of the money comes from private donors and from Political Action Committees (Pacs).
Pacs represent various interest groups and donate money directly to candidates or parties.
The sums are capped.
There are also so-called "Super Pacs" who do not donate money directly, but rather campaign themselves, for example, they place TV advertisements.
They have no cap and can spend as much money as they want.
Some "Super Pacs" also disguise who the actual donors are by drawing money from NGOs that do not disclose who it comes from.
Why are races that are not scarce expensive?
This year, it's not just the Senate races that are getting a lot of money.
The battles for seats in the House of Representatives are also expensive.
It's not always head-to-head races.
For example, in the 14th district of New York, the district of the young MPs Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called AOC, which surprisingly prevailed against an internal party competitor in 2018 and is one of the most famous faces of the House of Representatives.
According to the statistics portal "Fivethirtyeight", it is highly unlikely that Ocasio-Cortez will lose the constituency.
Nevertheless, it is one of the most expensive house races this year, according to the "Center for Responsive Politics" the election campaign costs around 30 million dollars.
Ocasio-Cortez has raised more than $ 17.3 million in donations, its competitor, Republican John Cummings, raised $ 9.6 million.
According to the "New York Times", the Republican strategist Tom Doherty sees the reason for the high donation sums in the prominence of Ocasio-Cortez.
"I guarantee you 75 percent of his donors do not know anything about him," Doherty told the newspaper.
"I don't know anything about him, except that he is up against AOC."
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