On November 3rd, not only a dirty but also the most expensive election campaign in American history comes to an end. US President Trump and his Democratic challenger Biden have raised a record amount of donations. In no other country in the world are election campaigns as expensive as in the United States. You can’t win an election without money, and Donald Trump and Joe Biden are no exception. Rather, the 2020 presidential election campaign dwarfs all previous duels from a financial point of view. “We are moving to 11 billion US dollars in this election campaign. The most expensive election so far was the 2016 with 6.5 billion US dollars,” says political scientist Jörg Hebenstreit from the University of Jena in the ntv podcast “Learned again “. The political scientist is an expert on campaign finance in the USA and wrote his doctoral thesis on it two years ago. The $ 11 billion relates to presidential, Senate, and House elections. According to the Open Secrets database of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), the sum could even increase to 14 billion in the end through last-minute donations. A simple explanation for the cost explosion cannot be given, it is related to very different factors, says Hebenstreit. “The essential factor is Trump. This leads to enormous enthusiasm among his own supporters, but also contributes to an enormous mobilization on the opposing side. It leads to negative enthusiasm among democratic voters and financiers and motivates to set all monetary levers in motion . ”

Money is an election requirement

According to Open Secrets, the Democrats account for 54 percent of total campaign spending in this presidential campaign. Joe Biden could put more money into the election campaign than Donald Trump. As of mid-October, the ex-Vice President had already spent 790 million US dollars on his campaign, Trump was 565 million at the time. It says so in the books of the Federal Election Commission, the US agency that regulates campaign finance.

US election countdown “Biden knows it’s not enough to just win”

However, Biden should not rest on his expenses. Whoever invests more money does not automatically win the election. Hillary Clinton felt that. In the 2016 election campaign, she invested significantly more money than Trump, the result is well known. “At the presidential level you can clearly see that money is not decisive for the election. But money is a prerequisite for the election,” explains Jörg Hebenstreit. “If you as a candidate have no monetary requirements and cannot bring in any money, you have no chance.” Nothing works in the US election campaign without money, but in the end a few hundred million US dollars are not decisive. This can also be seen in the example of Michael Bloomberg. The multi-billionaire and ex-Mayor of New York City wanted to run as a Democratic candidate against Trump, but was clearly defeated in the primaries. Tom Steyer, another multi-billionaire, quickly got out of the primary campaign. As potent financiers, both are an important factor until the end. The billions of the two men ensure a veritable flood of money.

Multi-billionaires mix up the election campaign

“Bloomberg has financed a billion US dollars from its own coffers for its own candidacy in less than three months. In February alone, it spent almost half a billion, that is 16 to 20 million US dollars a day,” says Hebenstreit. The active participation of several billionaires in the presidential race is one of the main reasons for the pulverization of the campaign donation record. “You have reached spheres here that you had not thought possible two to four years ago.”

Joe Biden has raised nearly $ 1 billion in donations for his own campaign, while Donald Trump “only” raised $ 600 million. Both candidates hardly increased the amount out of their own pockets. Biden did not transfer a single dollar and Trump left it at a symbolic amount. “Trump does not yet have any current and reliable figures. I last read about 800 US dollars. But we won’t know exactly until, I guess, in January.”

Forecasts in the US election campaign “Situation is back to four years ago”

Jörg Hebenstreit assumes that this year around 20 to 25 percent of donations will come from so-called small donors. These are people, associations or companies that donate less than $ 200. So-called Super-Pacs have the greatest influence on the election campaign. These are lobby groups who, with the permission of the Supreme Court, are allowed to bring unlimited amounts of money to the election campaign.

In fact, there are no longer any donation limits

In 2010, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on campaign finance. Since then, companies, associations and the super-rich are not allowed to donate their huge sums directly to a candidate or a party, but can do so through a kind of middleman. In terms of campaign donations, all dams are broken with this ruling. “The campaign financing system has been more or less completely deregulated and privatized in recent years,” said Hebenstreit. “Since the Super-Pacs came into being, you can get around donation limits simply by saying, ‘Okay, then I won’t donate directly to a candidate or a party, but to a Super-Pac’.

Quite a turbulent tenure that was four years of Trump

This Super Pac then distributes the money in the desired direction and ensures that candidates and parties with full pockets can go hunting for votes. Most of the donations were spent on television advertising in this election campaign. Jörg Hebenstreit estimates the proportion at around 65 to 80 percent, since TV spots would have gained in importance again in the Corona crisis. Because there were fewer outdoor events because of the pandemic, the parties and candidates have put even more emphasis on TV and radio spots. Michael Bloomberg, for example, booked television commercials for Joe Biden in the hotly contested states of Ohio and Texas a week before the election at the last minute – according to the “New York Times” for around 15 million US dollars. By way of comparison: in the last election campaign in Germany, all parties together only spent around 70 to 75 million euros. “This is not a comparison between apples and pears, but rather between apples and tomatoes, really two very different things,” says Hebenstreit and, in addition to the fundamental differences between the two electoral systems, also blames “a completely different culture of giving money”. Super-rich who interfere with hundreds of millions in the election campaign are completely unimaginable in Germany. The land of unlimited opportunity, on the other hand, is also the land of unlimited campaign donations.

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