He didn't win the money race, but Donald Trump will be the next president of the U.S. In the primaries and general election, he defied conventional wisdom, besting better financed candidates by dominating the air waves for free. Trump also put to use his own cash, as well as the assets and infrastructure of his businesses, in unprecedented fashion. He donated $66 million of his own money, flew across the country in his private jet, and used his resorts to stage campaign events. At the same time, the billionaire was able to draw about $280 million from small donors giving $200 or less. Super-PACs, which can take contributions unlimited in size, were similarly skewed toward his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Ultimately, Trump won the presidency despite having raised less than any major party presidential nominee since John McCain in 2008, the last to accept federal funds to pay for his general election contest.
Clinton and her super-PACs raised a total of $1.2 billion, less than President Barack Obama raised in 2012. Her sophisticated fundraising operation included a small army of wealthy donors who wrote seven-figure checks, hundreds of bundlers who raised $100,000 or more from their own networks, and a small-dollar donor operation modeled on the one used by Obama in 2012. She spent heavily on television advertising and her get-out-the-vote operation, but in the end, her fundraising edge wasn't enough to overcome Trump's ability to dominate headlines and the airwaves.
On Dec. 8, campaigns and super-PACs filed their post-election reports on fundraising and spending with the Federal Election Commission from Oct. 20 through Nov. 28. Here's where they stood at the end of the race:
JULY | AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER | PRE-GENERAL
Candidate Raised to Date* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $973.2M
Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $969.1M
Cash on Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4.1M
Super-PACs Raised to Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $217.5M
Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $215.1M
Cash on Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3.7M
Total Raised to Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,190.7M
Total Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,184.1M
Total Cash on Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7.8M
Candidate Raised to Date* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $564.3M
Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $531.0M
Cash on Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $33.3M
Super-PACs Raised to Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $82.3M
Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $85.5M
Cash on Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -$1.8M
Total Raised to Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $646.8M
Total Spent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $616.5M
Total Cash on Hand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $31.5M
In the last frenzied days before the election, the campaigns spent at prodigious rates fighting for every vote and making their final pitches to the American people. The fundraising continued as well—even after the election.
In the final weeks of the race, the campaigns burned through their stockpiles of cash. Trump increased his spending on television and cable ads, but his digital strategy may have been decisive. A Trump campaign official said they targeted specific groups of Clinton backers with negative ads on social media to lower Democratic turnout. That may have been a factor in Trump's performance in battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as his victories in "blue wall" states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Clinton, who invested early in television ads and get-out-the-vote operations in battleground states, expanded her map in the final weeks, campaigning in Arizona, typically a reliably Republican state. In the last days of the campaign, she made appearances in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two states she added to her itinerary in the last days of the campaign.
Because Trump's fundraising lagged far behind Clinton's, he spent far less on television, relying on digital advertising to get his message out.
Clinton's disciplined campaign built the cash reserves necessary to execute her strategy, but she still came up short on Nov. 8.
Campaigns maximize their spending in the last weeks before the election. Both Clinton, who spent a year and a half amassing hers, and Trump emptied their war chests in the final week.
While Trump was the biggest single donor to his own cause, his small donor fundraising operation was his biggest source of campaign cash. Clinton had an aggressive small-dollar donor operation as well, but her biggest source was larger donations, many of which came via the networks of her hundreds of bundlers.
Trump put more of his money into winning the primaries than he did in the general election, thanks in part to a surge in small-dollar donors to his campaign.
Throughout the campaign, Clinton's team stressed its support from small donors, but both Trump and Bernie Sanders leaned more heavily on them than Clinton.
* Includes loans and contributions from the candidate, transfers from party committees, rebates and refunds from vendors and other receipts.
After trailing most of the cycle, the Democratic National Committee ended up outraising its GOP counterpart, but the Republican National Committee's strategy of building a permanent get-out-the-vote infrastructure in battleground states paid off for Trump, who often feuded with the party's leaders. The joint fundraising committees set up by Hillary Clinton made sure that the Democratic National Committee had plenty of cash.
The biggest spenders backing Democratic candidates, including progressive billionaires and labor unions, have given generously to super-PACs backing Clinton, with 50 donors who've given $1 million or more. While the GOP's biggest donors spent most of the election directing contributions down ballot, some, such as Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, gave late money to a super-PAC supporting Trump.
The five biggest donors to Clinton combined contributed more to elect her president than Trump spent on his own campaign. Some of Trump's biggest donors didn't give until late in the campaign.
* Includes donations to campaign committees, joint fundraising committees and allied super-PACs.