Capital Economy, Business and Finance
Hundreds of millions of people will vote in the US election, but the money of just a handful will have had an outsized impact on the race.
That’s the long tail of a 2010 US Supreme Court ruling that lifted limits on spending by political action committees and paved the way for super PACs, which can raise unlimited amounts of money and use it to help their preferred candidate.
Fourteen years on, the 2024 presidential race is awash with billionaire money. Trump received nearly half of his campaign contributions from small donors in 2020; this time they account for a third.
More than 60 billionaires have either endorsed Trump, contributed to Trump campaign groups, or hosted a fundraiser for him.
Eighteen of the top 25 donors in this election cycle have given exclusively or chiefly to Republicans, and that’s just what’s been made public.
According to the NYT, the first two weeks of October saw around $240 million donated to super PACs from entities that don’t disclose their donors.
