8 rules to help you understand what campaign finance reporting reveals about influence and support – or doesn’t

News stories about campaign finance are frequent in any election season, and this year is no exception. In Ohio, for instance, NBC reported in August 2026 that there had been over US$130 million in outside spending in the state’s U.S. Senate race. The story also summarized how much money the two candidates had raised from different categories of supporters, such as the proprietors of nursing homes, labor unions and small donors. It can be hard for the average person to think about these things. It’s hard to know what a normal amount of money is, what it means for a candidate to receive money from particular kinds of donors, or what the impact of this money has on elections. Money is an essential part of elections, yet many Americans view campaign finance as a sign of corruption. They may have a point – but it is still important to understand the nuances of our system in order to decide what is corruption and what is just regular politics. Campaign funding has changed dramatically in the past two decades. In the most competitive races, spending by outside groups – organizations other than candidates or parties – has increased from a small percentage of spending in the early 2000s to an amount that exceeds what candidates themselves spend. Super PACs or “dark money” groups can spend millions of dollars quickly, putting pressure on candidates to raise more money just in case. I’m a political scientist who studies and writes about campaign finance laws and practices. As confusing as campaign spending may appear to be, there are still some basic rules anyone can use to understand information about money in elections. While most of my examples here are about federal elections, these rules apply to state and local campaigns as well. The Federal Election Commission’s chart of the top 10 spenders in 2026 Senate races. FEC.gov Rule #1: Every campaign is more expensive than the last one. This is partly a matter of inflation, but the cost of the average campaign has grown at a rate even faster than inflation. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics, $9.5 billion was spent on congressional elections in 2024, compared with $8.8 billion in 2020. This looks like an increase, but when you adjust for inflation, it’s not. But if you compare elections over the past decade, overall spending has nearly doubled, from $5.1 billion – adjusted for inflation – in 2014 to $9.5 billion in 2024. The decline in the number of congressional seats that are truly competitive in the general election means that this money is now concentrated in far fewer races than it was in the past. Rule #2: Smart donors don’t give money to candidates with no chance of winning. If you compare the candidates in each of the 468 or so congressional races, the candidate with the most money wins over 90% of the time. But most of these races feature a popular incumbent who is almost certain to win. Such candidates tend to raise respectable sums of money, but they don’t win because they have raised more – they raise more because they are certain to win. Who would want to give money to a candidate who is doomed to lose? Rule #3: It’s good to have money – but it’s better not to need it. If you consider the most competitive races, it becomes clear that the candidates who raise the most money overall are usually the ones who need it most. In the case of incumbents, these are the ones who face the toughest reelection challenges and are the most likely to lose. These are the races that draw the most money from out of state or from outside groups. In the most expensive races – the ones where both candidates raise a lot – it matters a lot less who has raised the most than in the less competitive ones. It’s one thing to outraise your opponent by $500,000 or more in a race where neither of you has raised more than $1 million. But it’s another thing to outraise your opponent by a similar amount in a race where each of you has raised $20 million or more. Rule #4: Home state donors matter more. If a candidate has raised a lot of money from interest groups or from wealthy residents of another state, that is helpful to their campaign, but those people cannot vote for the candidate. Conversely, if a candidate has raised that money from people in their community, the contributions are a sign that those same people will likely vote for them, campaign for them, and tell their friends to support them. The total value of these contributions, then, is less important than what they signify. Rule #5: Small donations, particularly from out of state, suggest that a campaign has some sort of unique appeal. Some candidates will boast about receiving much of their money from small donations. U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, proudly says that her average contribution is $21. Candidates who can do this – attract support from regular people who give modest sums – tend to be more progressive or conservative than the average candidate, or to have some sort of feature that makes them stand out to people across the country. Just as importantly, the types of people who make small contributions also tend to be more ideologically extreme than the average voter. Many of these donors do not reside in the district where the campaign is happening, but are mobilized by emails or other online communications. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez touts the fact that her average campaign contribution is $21. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Rule #6: Super PACs can spend money quickly, but they can’t do the things candidates can. Super PACS are political committees that engage in advocacy about candidates but cannot give money to candidates or communicate directly with them. Many news stories compare candidate fundraising to super PAC support. To an extent, it’s better for a candidate to have money in their own campaign fund than to have super PAC support. That’s because candidates know better than outside groups the best way to spend money, they have an easier time spending money on grassroots campaigning, and their money comes from a larger number of people – and therefore it is a sign of broader support. But it is not difficult for super PACs to learn how they can help candidates even though their staff cannot speak directly with them. A careful look at a candidate’s webpage or candidate advertising can tell groups what a candidate wants to talk about and who the candidate is trying to reach. Because super PACs can raise unlimited amounts of money from a single donor, they can jump into a race and spend millions of dollars quickly. Even though they may not get more bang for the buck, they can change a race with a large advertising buy. Rule #7: Party money can be more helpful to candidates than super PAC money. The Supreme Court recently abolished limits on coordinated spending by political parties for candidates. Because they do not always know local politics as well as their candidates do, parties cannot spend money quite as efficiently as candidates. However, they tend to have larger, more experienced staffs than super PACs, and therefore they know more about how best to help their candidates than super PACs do. Parties also have access to voter information that super PACs do not. Parties and candidates also can now receive discounts on advertising expenses that outside groups do not. Rule #8: Little is gained from knowing donor occupations or employers. The Federal Election Commission requires people who give more than $200 to a federal candidate to disclose their employer. Some analyses will report the money that candidates get from the employees of particular companies. This is misleading – just because someone is employed in a certain business or company doesn’t mean they are giving to help their employer. The University of California, for instance, has many reasonably well-paid employees, and some of them give money to candidates. This doesn’t mean the University of California has any role in the election. Similarly, the most common occupations of donors are often “retired” and “self-employed.” Campaign contributors tend to be older than other Americans, but beyond this, there is little to be gained from knowing this employer information. And the “self-employed” include such a wide range of people – from consultants to landscapers – that this category is similarly meaningless.