Fundraising by presidential campaign committees, both Democrat and Republican are significantly behind 2007 levels, which was the last time there was an open race for the Presidency. By the third quarter in 2007 all candidates for president has raised a combined $420 million dollars, $245 million for Democrats and $175 million for Republicans. This year the combined total is $273 million, 35% down from eight years ago (see Table 1).
If we were to add in the money we know has gone into Super PACs supporting candidates this gap would be easily made up. Although Super PACs won’t report activity for the second half of the year until January, Super PACs supporting presidential candidates reported raising over $240 million dollars as of June 30th. However, the Super PAC money comes with some question marks. We know from 2012 that Super PACs can purchase effective media ads. It remains to be seen whether they can make up for deficits in a campaign’s core staff operations. Two candidates, Scott Walker and Rick Perry, have already withdrawn from the campaign despite the money raised by each of their supportive Super PACs.