As the presidential nomination process begins to wind down for both the Republican and Democratic parties, donors for the candidates who lost are starting to feel the fatigue of the constant need for funds.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination who have dropped out of the race raised a combined $520 million. The list includes: Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum.
The largest donations to GOP candidates who dropped out included $154 million for Jeb Bush, $121 million for Marco Rubio, and $77.2 million for Ben Carson.
The campaigns alone for the Republican presidential contenders who have dropped out pulled in a total of $200.89. However, those campaigns spent $187.58 million of that money they raised, or roughly 93.4 percent of the money raised has been spent, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
The Super PACs and other assorted groups that have also helped raise money for the GOP candidates who have dropped out pulled in $316.7 million. The spending for this group totaled $271.9 million, or 85.8 percent of the money raised by these groups is gone.
Much of that money has gone into television ads. The campaigns for Bush, Rubio, Carson, Walker, Christie, Fiorina, Paul, Perry, Jindal, Graham, Huckabee, and Santorum aired a combined 30,375 television ads during their respective campaigns.
The Super PACs and other groups aired a combined 85,656 TV ads supporting the campaigns of the candidates. Combined, more than 116,000 television ads have been aired by campaigns and their supporting Super PACS and other groups, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
For comparison purposes, the campaigns of Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump have raised $197.4 million with $113 million of that coming from the individual campaigns.
On the Democratic side of the ballot, Hillary Clinton has topped candidates of both parties with $222 million. Bernie Sanders is just behind Clinton with $140 million raised, but all of his came from his campaign and none from Super PACs.
Clinton’s campaign has raised $160 million and other groups have contributed $62.5 million. The two Democrats battling it out have aired a combined 165,282 television ads with the split between the two campaigns almost even at 83,095 for Clinton and 82,187 for Sanders.
