Fundraising: The Waiting Game

While the race for the presidential nomination from each party has been getting plenty of attention, candidates running for both the House of Representatives and the Senate have been building up their own war chests. While they still have to get the nomination, individuals for Congress really concentrate on making sure they’ll be able to run the race in the fall.

Consider the totals for fundraising in the presidential race: a grand total of $791,766,183 has been raised by all the candidates, and $691,479,424 of that has ben spent. Money’s going out as fast as it’s coming in. The exact opposite is happening in Congress races: candidates for the Senate have raised $158,968,499 and spent $61,771,588 — less than half. Candidates for the House are spending a bit more, but have raised $357,578,897 and still have a third of their money left after spending $201,425,641.

Spring and early summer is the time that politicians running for Congress are fundraising — and when the fall comes around, they’ll hopefully already have the cash on hand to concentrate more on campaigning than charming wallets. But in the presidential race, the candidates are going to need to fundraise just as hard in the fall as they are now, and there’s a a question of just how much money they get after all that their supporters have given. Public financing may be the only way to avoid it.