When fundraising reports trickle out quarter by quarter, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture: candidate fundraising over the last couple cycles has soared.
In 2014, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes and Republican Mitch McConnell raised a combined $49.8 million in their battle for one of Kentucky’s Senate seats. It was the most expensive race that cycle. But a combined fundraising haul of nearly $50 million would not have even cracked the top 10 most expensive Senate races of the 2020 cycle. It would have ranked 13th, right between #12 Texas ($64 million) and #14 Alabama ($40.7 million).
Running for the U.S. Senate has been an expensive proposition for years. Waging a statewide campaign, often across several media markets, takes serious resources.
But over the past decade, Senate races have gone from being merely expensive to being a multi-billion dollar nationwide melee.
A review of Federal Election Commission filings from the past six Senate cycles reveals an accelerating financial arms race that has transformed politics in states from Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between.
All figures cited come from the final round of FEC filings in each cycle, and reflect the total amount of money raised by each party’s nominee over the course of the election, including money a nominee donated or loaned to their own campaign. It includes fundraising during the primary and the general elections, but does not include fundraising by candidates who did not win their party’s nomination.
This analysis does not include spending by the party campaign committees or outside groups such as Super PACs and 501(c)4 organizations.
The Big Picture
In 2012, Democratic and Republican nominees in Senate races across the country raised a combined $628 million, an...