Ballot Breakdown Part 2 – The Money Behind Politics
Understanding how our government works can feel confusing. In this series, we’ll take a straightforward look at how the government, laws, and policies affect our daily lives!
It is no secret that being a government department head, a senator, or a president isn't free. Even if I had the age and qualifications, loving support from friends and family wouldn't cut it. To run for office, a different type of support is needed: Monetary. And a singular Ben Franklin isn't going to cut it!
Under our capitalist society, even in other areas of politics, money has an impact, whether it is influencing decisions or funding actions. In this article, I'm going to explain how money plays a role in U.S. politics — simplified.
And to start off, I'm going to talk about one of the most obvious examples where we can see the link between money and politics: campaign financing.
According to Open Secrets, the most recent presidential election cost both the Democratic and Republican parties each over six billion, totaling over 12 billion dollars in cost combined. To put that into perspective, 12 billion dollars could buy 2,268,431,001 Big Macs, given that a Big Mac costs $5.29 in 2025, according to Reader’s Digest. Let’s break it down to see how this money is being spent.
As stated by Represent Us, some factors that influence campaign financing are advertising, campaign staffing, voter outreach, and polling.
First, if you've ever seen an ad by a political candidate during election season, these are used to, like every other strategy, get more voters. By appearing across your screen and spreading their goals, candidates hope to help you see why they will best serve your region. Secondly, campaign staffing. Extensive campaigns involve many people — not just one. Money is needed to pay the people who coordinate campaign events, craft the candidate’s image, and more. Third, voter mobilization involves reaching out to potential voters via phone calls, emails, and mail. Finally, researching areas to target and statistics about voter backgrounds is just another cost to add to the list.
Now that we know why money matters, let’s figure out how it can be obtained.
PACs: Short for Political Action Committees and explained by Caltech Science Exchange, these can help fund campaigns. However, they are subject to limits, unlike Super PACs. Unable to contribute to campaigns directly, Super PACs influence elections through unlimited donations.
By the book, Campaign Legal Center explains that both PACs and Super PACs have to disclose all donors. However, the same cannot be said for 501(c)(4) social welfare groups or 501(c)(6) trade associations, which can donate to Super PACs and only be listed as an organization, not individual names. Many find dark money unethical because of its secrecy.
Aside from just monetarily supporting candidates, large amounts of money have been known to influence the goals of a representative. For everyday people, this can create the idea that representatives will make more of an effort to represent wealthy donors.
One example of money influencing politics outside of elections is the repeal of the Broadband Consumer Privacy Rules in 2017. Although it might not have been in the best interest of internet users, through corporate influence and lobbying, as explained by Wikipedia, it prevailed.
Despite all that we learned today, money isn't everything. However, money does certainly have a factor in influencing policymaking, and its effect isn't invisible. Nevertheless, it would be an extreme statement to say that representatives only follow the money -- after all, their job is to represent their people. What’s important is that people today understand the impact that money can have on decisions, elections, and policy.