The flood of seven-figure contributions to outside groups supporting presidential candidates — officially reported for the first time Friday — illustrates in stark terms how the unprecedented political buying power of wealthy donors has fundamentally shifted U.S. presidential campaigns.

The 67 biggest donors, each of whom gave $1 million or more, donated more than three times as much as the 508,000 smallest donors combined, according to a POLITICO analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.


The 67 mega-donors accounted for $128 million in cash to super PACs supporting specific 2016 presidential candidates. In all, POLITICO’s analysis found that 29 super PACS and other big-money non-profits dedicated to the candidates combined to raise $271 million from 9,500 donors, for an average donation of $29,000.

On the ledger’s other side, the analysis found that donors who gave $200 or less to the candidates’ campaigns (and whose donations are estimated at $75 each) combined to donate $38 million to the campaigns of the 21 announced candidates.

The analysis highlights tactical challenges not faced by past presidential campaigns – namely how to spend all of that cash efficiently and legally, given rules intended to wall off candidates and their campaigns from big-money groups.

While prospective presidential candidates in past cycles crisscrossed the country cultivating relationships with county chairmen in Iowa and New Hampshire, most 2016 White House aspirants spent the months leading up to their launches schmoozing billionaires. And the FEC and IRS reports show that billionaire checks have not only dwarfed those of small donors who used to be the lifeblood of campaigns, but essentially built the foundations for many presidential bids.

“I don’t see any election that’s remotely like this historically with the concentration at the top,” said Michael Malbin, who founded the Campaign Finance Institute and has been studying campaign funding for more than three decades. “There is a lure to getting your money in big chunks. It comes more quickly and more easily.”

A trio of super PACs supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination raised $36 million from just six donors. Their checks amounted to about 2 ½ times more than Cruz’s presidential campaign has raised since its March launch.

And a super PAC supporting former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s GOP campaign raised more from a single home-state supporter – poultry magnate Ronnie Cameron donated $3 million – than Huckabee’s campaign raised overall in its first two months of fundraising – $2 million, according to the reports.

To be sure, small-dollar fundraising takes longer to gain traction, and there’s a strong incentive for the campaigns to keep at it. Cash raised directly by campaigns can be spent more efficiently thanks to the election rules left in place after the federal court decisions that paved the way for unlimited spending by billionaire-backed groups. The rules prohibit campaigns, which are barred from accepting more than $2,700-per-donor for the primary campaign, from coordinating their spending strategies with super PACs and other non-profits that can accept unlimited contributions. That can complicate efforts by big-money groups to mirror a campaign’s messages. Additionally, the groups do not qualify for lower television advertising rates that stations are required to provide candidates.

The super PAC money, Malbin said, “is less efficient, but there is a lot more of it. So – having more of less efficient money – maybe that works out in the end.”

In fact, some big-money groups are working with lawyers to expand the role of super PACs beyond their traditional advertising function, including pioneering new ways to work closely with their allied campaigns.

The four PACs supporting Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton this year combined to raise nearly $27 million from 1,900 donors, and on Friday two of them – Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record – filed a report to create a joint fundraising committee to solicit big checks together. Correct the Record plans an envelope-pushing relationship in which it will work with Clinton’s campaign to provide research.

The super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s campaign for the GOP nomination, Right to Rise USA, raised a field-leading $103 million and plans both television ads and direct mail appeals, as well as voter mobilization efforts. It reported having spent $5.4 million in the first half of the year, including $1.7 million on data, list rental and direct mail-related costs.

But most of the recently filed FEC reports reflect relatively little big-money spending so far. The 29 super PACs and big-money non-profits in POLITICO’s analysis spent only $28 million in the first half of the year, leaving them with more than $230 million in the bank, according to the filings.

They’ll likely have even more to spend in the coming months, as some of the biggest givers from both parties begin opening their checkbooks. Among the big-giving billionaires who have yet to donate to presidential super PACs in 2015 are Republican boosters including Sheldon Adelson, Charles and David Koch and Paul Singer, and Democratic givers Fred Eychaner, Jim Simons and Tom Steyer.

The deluge of super PAC cash into the presidential campaign is not good for democracy, argued David Donnelly, president and CEO of Every Voice, a nonprofit that hopes to reduce the role of big money in politics.

“It already has turned off voters, because it shows that elections are not about regular people. It creates a barrier between elected officials and regular people,” Donnelly said. “And what voters are expecting to get now – which is a year and a half of negative advertising – does not make them excited about the prospects of this presidential race.”

The big money also discourages small donors, Donnelly said, pointing out 2014 was the first midterm election in which fewer overall donors contributed than in the previous midterm.

“That’s the impact of people who are giving a few bucks here and there seeing that candidates only care about the large checks,” he said.

That doesn’t make sense to California donor Rob Arnott, who has already written checks to super PACs backing Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, and Minnesota media billionaire Stan Hubbard, a GOP mega-donor.

“Nothing has really changed,” Arnott said. “More in superPACs, less in campaign contributions? Campaign costs are up every cycle, but aggregate costs don’t seem to change much as a percentage of GDP. It’s like squeezing a water balloon; if one side is squeezed, the other grows.”

Hubbard, who donated $50,000 to a super PAC supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign for the GOP nomination, added: “We all give what we can, but of course, the small money adds up bigger than the big money.” The pro-Walker super PAC raised an impressive $20 million between its mid-April creation and the end of last month, including $12.5 million from a trio of Midwestern billionaires.

By comparison, Hubbard said, “I’m just a cheapskate,” though he said his family intended to donate more if Walker continues to perform well.

“I believe in free speech, and I think that anybody that wants to put in their own money, whether it’s for their own personal campaign – such as Trump is doing – or to help others, I think it’s a free country and I’m all for it,” said Hubbard. He rejected criticism of big donors forays into politics as “a lot of jealously.”