Republican billionaires are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to keep Republicans in control of Congress, based on the assumption that more money wins elections. However, the past three presidential elections show that simply having more money than your opponent is not enough to win.
In the 2016 race, Hillary Clinton’s total spending exceeded Donald Trump’s by more than $300 million, according to OpenSecrets’ 2016 presidential race data. Clinton spent $770 million, while Trump spent $433 million. Clinton raised more from both the candidate’s committee and outside money.
In the 2020 presidential election, total spending from these sources shows that Joe Biden outspent Trump by more than $500 million, according to Open Secrets.
Open Sources also reported, from the same two sources, that in the 2024 race, Kamala Harris’s total spending exceeded Trump’s by more than $500 million. These figures are based on FEC data released electronically on February 6, 2025.
Trump had a couple of possible advantages in 2016 and 2020. In 2016, Trump used the media so widely that OpenSecrets credited that coverage with being worth about $5 billion. That figure is unprovable, and Hillary Clinton didn’t need to establish her political philosophy. She was well known before she ran. She had served as First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State. In 2020, Trump’s advantage was that he was the incumbent president and used public media to carry his campaign message.
Still, Trump’s image and reality were that his campaigns had more funding from the billionaire class than his Democratic opponents. The Washington Post’s FEC-based analysis through June 20 found that Republican-leaning donors gave $1.7 billion, compared with $832 million from Democratic-leaning givers.
As reported in filings available before the October reporting deadlines, 14 major billionaire donors funded Republicans, 3 funded Democrats, and one contributed to both. This was before Elon Musk donated $158 million to the main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans.
The Republicans will benefit from the billionaire class pouring money into efforts to blunt the Democratic surge in the polls. However, as we can see, even hundreds of millions more don’t help a candidate or a party unless that money taps into the public’s major beliefs.
And NYT opinion writer David Wallace-Wells argues that “in critical races in red states, national Republicans are dumping unheard-of sums of money to save their majority — and barely making a dent in Democratic leads.”
Masculine White Males Can’t Carry the Weight of Winning Elections
Trump’s popularity among white males is central to his core voter base and a group that Democrats have rarely been able to win over. One theory that has circulated explains that Trump won in 2016 and 2024 but not in 2020. Trump’s advantage was that he ran against women opponents.
Paul deLespinasse cited research by Thomas B. Edsall, published in the New York Times. Edsall found that men who consider themselves highly masculine were far more likely to have voted for Donald Trump than men who do not consider themselves highly masculine. Edsall also notes that the political differences between the two male cohorts are far greater than those between men and women.
This theory seems to help explain how Trump defeated both Clinton and Harris. Consequently, I checked whether white males voted more for Biden than for Harris or Clinton, since he won the election and they did not.
I found that it is important to track down data that might support or refute any theory explaining a social phenomenon, such as men voting for one candidate over another. In this case, Trump over the two female presidential candidates. It’s not true, at least based on what we can measure.
Rural Trump voters may not save the Republicans this November
Trump appears to remain popular with in rural America. A journalist covering his rallies in Montana and Wyoming said the crowds at those rallies exhibited the same hyper-enthusiasm he saw in 2024.
They may still provide a steady, slightly expanding base of support, even though they have represented only about one-quarter of the electorate in all three prior elections. Since the Democratic share of rural voters fell from 34% in 2020 to 29% in 2024, it makes sense that Trump campaigns in deep-red states and in congressional districts dominated by rural voters, where he previously won by large margins.
But Trump’s support seems to have expanded even further in non-rural districts, as his popular vote has increased by more than 14 million since 2016. Meanwhile, the rural share of total votes cast has remained relatively flat. Those extra Trump votes came from urban regions that are generally Democrats’ voting base.
Meanwhile, the Democratic vote has varied. Harris received 9 million more votes than Clinton. By contrast, Biden was a standout, exceeding Clinton by 15 million votes and coming within 0.2% of a clear majority of the total votes cast in 2020.
Democrats Can’t Rely Just on Trump’s Unfavorable Ratings to Guarantee a Victory
Trump has never been popular with most of the nation, despite the illusion. Nevertheless, Trump is trying to make this election about his popularity. He has repeatedly told his MAGA supporters to pretend they are voting for him in this election, even though his name does not appear on the ballot.
As of Oct 21, 2016, Trump has a 61% disapproval rating, based on a daily average of polls conducted by dozens of organizations since Inauguration Day. That was exactly the same percentage he received just before the 2016 election, when he won, even though that was the worst disapproval rating in presidential polling history. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable score was 52%, and she received about three million more votes than Trump. She lost the election in electoral votes.
Just before the 2020 election, Joe Biden had a 50% unfavorable rating, while Trump’s was 57%. Biden went on to beat Trump by seven million votes. In the Kamala Harris vs. Trump election, their unfavorable ratings were roughly tied, with both averaging 52.5%. Trump received 2.8 million more votes than Harris. Ironically, that was half a million fewer than what H. Clinton received, and she lost.So, Democrats can’t rely solely on Trump’s abysmal approval ratings. But this mid-year election may repeat what occurred in 2020.
Republicans Can’t Ignore Voters’ Anger with Trump’s Narcissistic Behavior
The party that connects with the public’s strongest beliefs is more powerful than having more campaign money. That was true in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
In 2016, Trump tapped into a nativist desire to protect the homeland from an invasion by foreigners. In 2020, Biden appealed to a desire to return to normalcy; he did not push a grand plan for change that could be seen as another Trump-like administration. In 2024, Trump recognized how irritated many were with liberals’ overreach of government interference in people’s lives, which was seen more as woke than as socialist.
The conditions in this 2022 midterm election are similar to those that led to Biden trouncing Trump. The public has had enough of Trump’s excessive narcissism, which they see as the cause of their everyday problems. They see Trump boasting of his greatness while he creates chaos in their lives. They now pay more for gas and groceries, struggle to save enough for a house with an affordable mortgage, pay for health care, and try to run an urban business or a rural farm in an unpredictable economy.
The public links these struggles to Trump because he is in the news every day. He demands attention, and they see him as more interested in talking about his successes than in addressing their problems. That is why they rank government corruption as their main concern. It is corrupt to think of yourself before others; citizens feel neglected.
Gallup captured that sentiment in a survey this September, finding that 89% of respondents were either extremely or very concerned about government corruption. This is the highest level since 2006, when Gallup began asking about perceived corruption in the U.S. government. Some may even be aware that, as the New York Times noted, Trump personally gained at least $2 billion after returning to the White House.
The Gallup poll listed the following issues— inflation and high prices, gas prices, and healthcare—each at 80% concern in the Fox News poll. Of the 14 issues measured, voter fraud ranked last at 52%, with border security next at 56%.
Are there any Republicans running campaign ads that attack government corruption? Isn’t that silence, in a way, making them look like they’re tolerating it? Because they are loyal to their chief, who is behind a good portion of it?
Democrats must resist the temptation to wage a cultural war with the Republicans and focus on what most Americans believe needs to be addressed: running a stable, predictable government that can provide the economic environment and basic social conditions they expect.
This story first appeared in the author’s blog Becoming a Citizen Activist, and is used with his permission.
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