LANSING, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Harris Walz campaign is on track to break records when it comes to fundraising this election cycle. With presidential campaigns only getting more and more expensive to run, the Harris campaign hit a benchmark billion dollars raised since the campaign launched in late July.
Matt Grossmann, the director of Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy said part of the campaign’s ability to fundraise so quickly is because Harris inherited the infrastructure that Biden developed, including lists of previous donors. The education divide in the parties also plays a role, adults with degrees are more likely to lean left so the number of high-earning Democrats has been on the rise.
Grossmann said funding this election will be record-breaking, but so is every presidential election. The Biden campaign also reached the billion-dollar mark in 2020, with Trump at $774 million, but the higher number doesn’t always make for a winning candidate. In 2016 Hillary Clinton spent over $550 million to Trump’s $300 million.
A majority of that is spent on advertising, though previously Republicans have spent more on fundraising efforts online. This year, both parties have fully shifted to spending the most money online for digital ads on streaming services and apps.
“There is evidence that advertising does lead people to be more likely to vote with the candidate who agrees with them on more issues. This advertising, it works and it’s why you’re seeing all of this messaging. Voters are able to better distinguish the candidates as a result of it.” Grossmann said. “The issues that candidates campaigned on are actually predictive of the issues that they spend their time governing on. That’s another reason that we look to this advertising not just as wasted money but as a signal to all of us of what the candidates are going to focus on if they get elected.”
The campaigns are both expected to cross the billion-dollar mark when it comes to spending this year and with the most expensive weeks of the campaign still to come, both sides are ramping up advertising efforts to reach as many voters as possible in the last 20 days of the election.
