Fundragers splash the cash
THE THING ABOUT BIG NUMBERS IS that they can always get bigger. In 2020, the already gargantuan sums involved in American politics ballooned. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, an organisation that tracks money in politics, a whopping $14 billion was spent on federal elections this cycle. That’s not just a record amount, but more than double the figure from four years ago. Joe Biden became the first presidential candidate to raise more than a billion dollars. In total, slightly under half of the headline figure was spent on the presidential race and the rest was poured into the battle for the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Nine of the ten most expensive Senate races in US history took place this cycle. Collectively, those nine races cost around $2 billion. In the most expensive, in North Carolina, candidates and outside organisations racked up a tab of more than $300 million. Thanks to
