Q: It is estimated that the Democratic party spent over $1 trillion in the 2016 presidential campaign. How much, by comparison, did the Republicans spend?
–J.A. Jernigan, Atlanta
A: Bloomberg broke down the fundraising and spending numbers of the campaigns, their national parties and the major political action committees that aided each campaign.
The campaigns and PACs filed their post-election reports with the Federal Election Commission in December. The totals from Bloomberg.com are as of Nov. 28, 2016.
Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and PAC donations totaled nearly $1.2 billion, about twice as much as Trump’s combined total of nearly $647 million.
As of that filing, Bloomberg reported that Clinton had raised a total of $973.2 million and spent $969.1 million. Super PACs supporting Clinton had raised $217.5 million and had spent $215.1 million.
In addition, the Democratic National Committee had raised $344.6 million and spent $338 million.
Trump’s campaign raised $564.3 million and spent $531 million. Trump’s super PACs had raised $82.3 million, but spent $85.5 million in their campaign efforts.
The Republican National Committee had raised $320.1 million and spent $304.5 million.
Fast Copy News Service wrote this column; Keith Still contributed. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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