Funding is critical---campaigns fail when outspent.
Ximena Bustillo ’23 [November 1, 2023; Ximena Bustillo is a multi-platform reporter at NPR covering politics out of the White House and Congress on air and in print. She is a graduate of Boise State University. “It takes lots of money to win elections. Here's what you need to know,” NPR; https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/1205728664/campaign-finance-donations-election-fec-fundraising-ad-spending]
Television ads, logos, stickers, staplers and staffers. They are all needed to run political campaigns. And they all cost money.
Fundraising is one of the key components of political campaigns. Candidates spend a significant period of time talking to donors and mobilizing grassroots donations in order to keep their campaigns alive.
"Campaign finance matters," said Michael Kang, law professor at Northwestern University who specializes in campaign finance, among other matters. "It's the way that candidates fund their outreach and messaging to voters."
And the dollars add up. In the 2020 election, political spending topped $14 billion, according to OpenSecrets, doubling what was spent in the 2016 presidential election, making it the most expensive election cycle.
"We just see money in politics growing every year," said Shanna Ports, senior legal counsel for campaign finance at Campaign Legal Center. "There are new methods of technology, especially around the internet and digital platforms that campaigns want to be able to spend a lot of money on to reach voters and to micro-target people with their messages."
Media advertising accounts for a large part of spending, according to Kang. It's a race to the top.
"That's really what drives up the costs and the fact that everyone's pretty well funded and spends a lot of time fundraising," Kang said. "So you have to keep up with your opposition to get your message out."
Why raise money?
The advertisements that propel a candidate's message to voters on various media platforms take money to produce and to run.
"There's only so much you can do without paying for some sort of advertising, whether it's TV, radio, print, the internet. All of those things require money and they're very expensive," Kang explained.
But he said there are also plenty of other expenses that don't go to media outreach such as paying for pollsters, hiring campaign staff and printing yard signs and posters.