Peeking inside the war chests

From 1980 to 2012, the presidential candidate who spent the most on his campaign won the general election. But in 2016, Republican Donald Trump bucked that trend, underspending his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton by almost 2 to 1.

This year, Democratic nominee Joe Biden has opened up a huge fundraising lead on Trump. To begin September, Biden had $140 million more in his coffers than the president, and the Democratic National Committee outraised its GOP counterpart by more than $150 million during August.

Democrats got another boost last week, receiving more than $71 million in donations on the first day after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Early in the campaign, Trump and the Republican National Committee had a monetary lead of nearly $200 million, but that advantage has trailed off as Election Day draws near. The DNC divided its spending among Biden and his primary competitors before his last opponent dropped out in April, while Trump benefitted from all of the GOP dollars since he officially launched his reelection campaign last June.

Although the law technically caps individual contributions to campaigns at $5,600, donors use political action committees and the party committees to pour money toward campaigns in larger amounts. OpenSecrets, which analyzes campaign spending, found that billionaire Tom Steyer, who ran against Biden in the primaries, is the largest single donor in the 2020 election cycle so far, giving more than $54 million to Democratic candidates. Richard Uihlein, the founder of shipping giant Uline, donated more than $40 million to Republicans.

What will Biden do with his newfound advantage? His campaign said it poured significant resources into the previously red states of Georgia and Iowa, which have come back into play in 2020, according to recent polling. Those resources go to campaign essentials like TV and digital advertising and the hiring of additional staff, moves that can make the difference between wins and losses in tightly contested states.

Biden and Trump’s spending strategies have diverged in recent months, as well. Politico noted the Trump campaign cut its TV ad spending in August, paying one-third the amount spent by Biden in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Minnesota. Instead, Trump’s team focused on ads on Google and YouTube. Biden has spent merely $120,000 on expenses for events; the GOP has pumped out $6.8 million for rallies and other gatherings, highlighting the campaigns’ differing approaches during the coronavirus pandemic.

In response to Biden’s financial edge, Trump remained confident earlier this week: “Give me one day and a telephone. I could get all these rich people that I know very much to all put up millions of dollars apiece.”