Talk about your bidding wars. As the presidential candidates begin their final sprint toward the finish line, the election 2016 money marathon is just getting started. Collectively, candidates and their allies already have amassed more than $1.1 billion in political donations.
You can’t actually buy the White House, or the right to live there. Voters, not rich donors, make the ultimate call, and candidates can’t buy your vote, either. But with a billion dollars they could buy every house in East Hampton or Vail.
Campaign fundraising this year is on track to beat the $2.4 billion record set by the last race for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. By the time ballots were tallied in 2012, politicians and their supporters had spent enough to buy every house in Key West, South Bend, Dayton or Dubuque.
“It does cost a lot of money to run for office, especially a national office, especially the highest office in the land,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the watchdog Center for Responsive Politics. “But it matters less that it costs millions of dollars and more that it’s coming from a very tiny fraction of Americans.”
She’s talking about campaign megadonors, who spend giant sums to influence the vote. They’re an outgrowth of a 2010 Supreme Court case, Citizens United, that lifted limits on political advertising and caused campaign costs to skyrocket.
The Upshot
“Candidates and campaigns have to devote enormous resources to raising this kind of money and that’s less time they spend on policies and listening to voters,” the Sunlight Foundation‘s Josh Stewart said. “There are a lot of reasons voters should be alert to the amount of money being spent.”
Plus, after Election Day, megadonors will get invited to the big housewarming party and we won’t.
Is the bidding war worth it? Let’s see what the candidates could have bought instead.
Hillary Clinton
$256.4 million
Clinton and her supporters have had at least six fundraisers just since Sunday so it’s no wonder she’s winning the money race. If she ever gets tired of the limelight, she could retreat to her home in the New York hamlet of Chappaqua. No, like really, seriously retreat — she could buy every house in the entire community for about $187 million.
Bernie Sanders
$182.8 million
He can’t quite afford Chappaqua and doesn’t have the coin to buy his home city of Burlington, Vermont. ($1.95 billion). But Sanders has raised enough money to buy a big chunk of the state. He could buy every house in Vermont’s 20 smallest villages — all of them, at once. If Sanders doesn’t want to spread himself that thin, he can get the picturesque town of Manchester for less than $171 million.
Donald Trump
$51.2 million
Forget fundraising. With a net worth of $4.5 billion, Trump is financing his own campaign. No, he can’t take Manhattan ($211.4 billion) or even his birthplace of Queens ($160.3 billion). But check out Seven Springs, the family’s New York retreat, where locals nixed his plans for a golf course. Instead of fighting town hall, Trump could just buy the towns. He could pick up every house in neighboring Mount Kisco ($850 million) and Bedford ($684 million) and still have money left for a few rounds.
Ted Cruz
Raised: $141.9 million
The senator goes home to Houston ($75.2 billion) where he has a luxury condo, but his campaign war chest pales in comparison to those of his rivals. Still, it’s enough to buy every house in Kaufman, Texas, a Dallas suburb with more than 2,600 homes. If he wants to spread out, Texas has plenty room. There are more than 1,400 Lone Star towns well within his price range. He could pick up a few dozen at a time.
John Kasich
Raised: $29.2 million
Ohio governors usually take up residency in the state executive mansion in Columbus, but Kasich bucked that tradition to stay home in nearby Westerville. He can’t buy his entire community ($2.13 billion). He can’t afford the governor’s retreat in the neighborhood of Bexley ($1.1 billion). And he can’t even buy all the houses in rural McKee’s Rocks, Pennsylvania ($49 million), his birthplace. Maybe he and Cruz should pool their resources.
Can the candidates buy your town? The full list is here.
Note: Home values based on Census Bureau data from 2014 American Community Survey. Campaign fundraising totals from the Center for Responsive Politics include donations to large political action committees, or super PACs, supporting particular candidates.
— With Taylor Marr