Tracking the 2016 Presidential Money Race

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

Clinton vs. Trump, Dollar by Dollar

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.

Spending Breakdown

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.

Campaign Fundraising

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.

Party Money

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.

Outside Money

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.