Do Your Political Donations Really Make a Difference — or Is Your Money Better Spent Elsewhere?
Recently on the social network X, user “Greg,” an investor from Kentucky asked a question that is likely on the minds of many Americans this election year: “This might be a dumb question but when a presidential campaign raises hundreds of millions of dollars what is that money used for?”
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His followers did not disappoint with the tongue-in-cheek responses.
“Cosco [sic] hot dogs for every American, I hope,” wrote Craig Chamberlin.
Greg rightfully pointed out that the Costco hot dog deal is so cheap, that wouldn’t cost more than a few million.
Moog Rogue answered, “mostly balloons.”
The real answer?
Campaign funds pay for an array of expenses associated with campaigning, including advertising, staff, office space, travel, voter outreach, polling, rallies, and even legal professionals who can help assure advertising is in compliance. While a significant amount of campaign donations come from Political Action Committees, small donations can make a difference in their fundraising efforts, especially for candidates who reject PAC money.
For instance, independent candidate Bernie Sanders raised 64 % of his $33 million plus in campaign funds in 2024 from small donors. Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised 68% of her $8.89 million from small donors. Republican Jim Jordan raised 59% of his $10.5 million from small donations, all according to statistics published by OpenSecrets.org.
An article at NPR.org pointed out that political advertising is one of the biggest line items in a campaign budget.
“That’s really what drives up the costs and the fact that everyone’s pretty well funded and spends a lot of time fundraising,” Michael Kang, law professor at Northwestern University, told NPR.org. “”So you have to keep up with your opposition to get your message out… “There’s only so much you can do without paying for some sort of advertising, whether it’s TV, radio, print, the internet.”
An article by Basis Technologies revealed that politicians are likely to spend up to $12 billion in ads leading up to the 2024 election, an increase as high as 30% from 2020.
But do political ad campaigns really work? With the vast amount of social media, and passionate views on both sides of the political spectrum, can people’s minds really be changed by an ad campaign? That becomes the real question. We researched studies dating as far back as 2000 and as recently as 2016 to find the answer.
A study out of Yale University and the University of California in 2020, focused on the 2016 presidential campaign, expanded on previous research showing that political ads have “little impact on voters’ preferences.”
“Positive ads work no better than attack ads. Republicans, Democrats, and independents respond to ads similarly. Ads aired in battleground states aren’t substantially more effective than those broadcast in non-swing states,” co-author Alexander Coppock, a Yale political scientist, wrote in the study.
That wasn’t always the case, however. In a 2021 study from Kellogg University, data from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections showed that positive ads helped increase voter turnout, which can sway election results. Meanwhile, negative ads suppressed turnout but also helped sway voters’ decisions, albeit not by a lot. The study used simulations to reveal that if a candidate increased negative ads against their opponent by 1%, they could garner 0.0025% more of the votes in an election. Positive ads could lead to a 0.016% increase.
Of course, these numbers are small and might not make a difference. Even in a close race, Kellogg professor of marketing Brett Gordon said in an article, “A lot of those voters will turn out in states that are non-battleground states.”
Bottom line: If you want to make a real difference in the world, your dollars might be better spent donating to causes you believe in, such as funding medical research, or even donating to local food pantries or other organizations in your community. You can use the Better Business Bureau charity checker at Give.org to find an accredited charity organization and see exactly where your money will go.
Editor’s note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Do Your Political Donations Really Make a Difference — or Is Your Money Better Spent Elsewhere?