While the success of Trump and Sanders with small donors may seem new, it is actually the culmination of more than a decade of advances in online fundraising. In 2004, Howard Dean’s success in raising small online donations led to claims that internet strategies, such as email solicitations, were “reinventing campaign fundraising.” By the end of that election, George W. Bush’s army of one million small donors was 10 times bigger than contributor rolls of the major-party candidates of 1996 and 2000. In 2008, the press lauded Barack Obama’s “startling success” at “ushering in a new digital era.” Then Obama’s 2012 campaign obliterated previous records, with 3.6 million people giving small amounts.

But this obscures the broader trend: The truth is that small donors aren’t as important to campaigns as they were before internet fundraising became popular, while the very biggest donors have become significantly more prominent in recent years.

Throughout the 1990s, small donors giving $350 or less—in 2016 dollars—provided more than half of all the individual contributions to candidates, parties, and other political committees over the entire course of each election cycle. In 2004, the year many commentators began to talk about the promise of the internet, such donors were responsible for 41 percent of all individual contributions. This year, through the end of the second quarter, they were responsible for just 34 percent of the total. And while large donors giving more than $100,000 supplied less than 10 percent of the money throughout the 1990s, by the end of this June that relative handful of donors provided a whopping 23 percent of all individual contributions.

Although our data do not include this summer’s surge in small-donor contributions to Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, there is little reason to think it would change the analysis. While Trump has apparently improved upon prior GOP nominees’ small-donor fundraising, the $100 million he has reportedly taken in from small donors is still significantly less than what Obama raised from them in 2012.

In fact, other developments since June indicate even more money is coming from large donors. The biggest donors of 2012, conservatives Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, just started giving to super PACs last month and have reportedly pledged $75 million. Congress recently increased limits on contributions to parties several times over, allowing candidates and parties to accept bigger six-figure checks than in 2012, and a recent analysis showed that just 10 individuals and couples have given approximately $200 million to super PACs through the end of August, twice the amount Trump’s small donors have reportedly provided.

The story of the past two decades is not as simple as the rich getting richer, and therefore having more to give. Rather, their alternately rising and falling share of giving suggests that policy choices—from congressional reforms to Supreme Court decisions—have also had a significant impact on where campaign funding comes from.