Tucker Scott ’26

Guest Writer

It used to be that if someone dropped a million dollars on a campaign, that campaign was seen to have a huge advantage. After all, they could flood the airwaves with positive ads for themselves or negative ads for their opponents. Alternatively, if a campaign was lacking money then it would be safe to say that the campaign was struggling. But now? The money flow a campaign has does not matter in the slightest. 

To see proof of my assertion, look no further than the 2016 Republican primary. When it began, Jeb Bush was the clear favorite; he had decent name recognition and oodles of money from big donors behind them. Then Donald Trump came in and proceeded to win the primary despite having and spending much less money on political ads than Jeb Bush did. And why did this strategy work? Because Donald Trump recognized a fundamental truth about the Republican electorate and American politics as a whole: we as voters already have our opinions of candidates and parties, and no amount of money spent on political ads will change that opinion. In the 2016 primary election, Republican voters had made clear that they did not want another moderate soft-spoken Bush, and Jeb Bush can spend all the money from PACs he wants; it wouldn’t change a single person’s opinion of the Bush family.

In the 2016 election, everyone expected Trump to lose. After all, he barely spent any money on his ground game and instead focused on rallying. Then, to everyone’s shock, he somehow pulled a victory out. This is despite the fact that Hillary Clinton spent around $1,191 million over the course of the election and Trump only spent $646.8 million. But the thing is, despite Hillary doubling up Trump on cash spending in the race, it didn’t matter. Not one bit. Because we, the American people, already knew everything about these two candidates and we already had opinions on them. Those opinions are that we utterly despised both of them. So that’s why even after dropping such a large amount of political ads by Clinton, and Trump dropping next to nothing, ultimately it didn’t matter. The ads weren’t going to change our underlying assumptions and beliefs about the election, no matter how much money was spent on them.

This can even be seen now in the 2024 election. Joe Biden’s campaign has nicknamed Trump “Broke Don” and it’s pretty easy to see why. Joe Biden has $130 million dollars on hand, while Donald Trump only has $33 million on hand and the RNC has $8 million. Regardless of whether this is a smart political move, the fact remains that Trump has to spend all his money on legal cases hasn’t mattered to voters in the slightest. In fact, it’s boosted him, because for the past half a year, at least Trump has been leading Biden in every poll despite the fact that both he and the RNC have very little cash on hand. The reasoning behind this is clear. The American people know these candidates, and a couple million bucks on ads won’t change a single voter’s mind. Is there a single Biden voter that would see a Trump ad calling Biden old and think “I never realized it but Joe Biden is old I’m voting for Trump”? Not in a million years. The same thing applies to Trump voters; is there a single Trump voter that would see a Biden ad calling Trump divisive and think “I never realized it but Trump is divisive”? Again, not in a million years. The money doesn’t matter because we know these candidates. If you asked all 330 million Americans about Trump and Biden, I guarantee every single one would have an opinion, and no amount of money dropped in an area is likely to change that, which is why ultimately the money game just doesn’t have the same impact as it did. 

Now, the fairly good argument that the amount of money a candidate has does not matter is a good thing. After all, big donors can’t gate-keep these elections and the people get to represent the candidates they feel best represents their viewpoints. But regardless of whether it is good or bad, the fact is that the amount of money a campaign has simply doesn’t matter in our modern political era.
Copy Edited by Hannah Torrey