Spending in presidential and congressional races projected to hit nearly $16 billion and smash records, new analysis shows

This year’s spending to elect a president and members of Congress will hit at least $15.9 billion – putting 2024 on track to become the nation’s most expensive federal election, according to a new analysis from OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics.

This year’s spending to elect a president and members of Congress will hit at least $15.9 billion – putting 2024 on track to become the nation’s most expensive federal election, according to a new analysis from OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics. Helping to drive up the price tag: blistering spending by outside groups, including deep-pocketed super PACs aiding Republicans. Outside spending – largely through independent expenditures such as advertising, mailings, canvassing and other activities to boost specific candidates – has reached roughly $2.6 billion. That’s nearly $1 billion more than groups like these spent at this point in the 2020 election, the analysis found. And with that independent activity expected to surge in the final weeks before Election Day, OpenSecrets’ researchers project that total outside spending for the cycle will top $5 billion. The top five megadonors to outside groups this cycle all support Republicans, led by Timothy Mellon, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune who has donated $125 million to a super PAC working to elect former President Donald Trump. That’s helped drive a major fundraising advantage to the conservative outside groups active in this election. “There may be a saturation point where elections can no longer get more expensive, but we haven’t reached it yet,” Brendan Glavin, OpenSecrets’ deputy research director, said in a statement. “Super PACs and billionaires continue to spend more and more hoping to select our elected officials. And right now, it is looking as though there isn’t a ceiling to how much an election in the U.S. can cost.” The super PAC aiding Trump’s presidential campaign, Make America Great Again, Inc., leads the outside spending, plowing more than $239 million into its efforts to elect the former president. Future Forward, the primary super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris – and President Joe Biden before she became the Democratic presidential nominee – has spent more than $212 million.