The crowded field of 2016 presidential candidates spent $48 million through the first half of the year — nearly twice as much as their counterparts had at this point in the 2012 cycle — reflecting the new realities of fast, expensive campaign launches.

The dramatic spending spike — detailed in Wednesday’s reports to the Federal Election Commission covering the beginning of April through the end of June — was underwritten mostly by fewer donors, each giving more money.


But overall, fundraising increases did not keep up with spending inflation, leading to spending ratios that in past elections might have provoked worry among campaign finance operatives. Such early campaign “burn rates” appear to be becoming more common in an age when races start earlier, pivotal digital and data tools cost more, consultants fetch huge salaries and campaigns rely on megadonor-funded super PACs to fill many traditional functions.

A handful of Republican presidential candidates who brought in at least $1 million apiece in the past three months each spent more than half of their haul — from the mid-50 percent burn rates of Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and Mike Huckabee, to the 74 percent rate of Donald Trump.

All but Trump, who provided nearly his entire $1.9 million haul from his own pocket, are expecting big-money super PACs to come to their aid. Reports detailing the unlimited contributions and spending of super PACs aren’t due with the FEC until the end of July.

But perhaps no candidate personified big early spending like Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Her campaign, which cast itself as a penny-pinching operation that relied heavily on small donors, revealed itself to be something quite different in its FEC report.

While the campaign brought in $47.6 million — three times more than the next most prolific fundraiser and more than any other presidential campaign had posted in its first quarter — it also spent more than three times as much as the next biggest spender: $18.7 million, amounting to a burn rate of 39 percent.

In fact, Clinton’s juggernaut spent more on payroll for her massive staff — $6 million — than any other candidate spent in total. Her staff worked out of more than 20 offices, for which the campaign paid $540,000 in rent — including about $106,000 for a Manhattan office space where Clinton herself often works, miles from her main campaign headquarters in hip Brooklyn.

It also spent heavily on cutting-edge campaign tactics, including investing $276,000 in an envelope-pushing relationship with a supportive super PAC called Correct the Record, which plans to coordinate research activities with Clinton’s campaign. The campaign also spent nearly $500,000 on voter data and data services, and $1.4 million on online advertising through a firm called Bully Pulpit Interactive that shaped the pioneering digital marketing effort behind Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.

Unlike Obama’s 2008 bid, which at first leaned heavily on low-dollar online contributions and boasted that it was ushering in a small-donor revolution in American politics, neither Clinton, nor the GOP’s top fundraising presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, raised significant portions of their cash from small donors.

Only 17 percent of Clinton’s cash came from donors contributing $200 or less, while 65 percent of it came from donors who gave the primary maximum of $2,700 or more.

Of the $11.4 million Bush raised since announcing his campaign in mid-June, 3.2 percent came from donors who gave $200 or less. An overwhelming 85 percent came from donors who gave $2,700 or more.

Both leaned on networks of well-connected donors to collect, or bundle, collections of checks from other donors. Clinton’s campaign voluntarily released a list of more than 100 top bundlers. including Democratic megadonors like billionaire media moguls Fred Eychaner and Haim Saban and a handful of current and former lawmakers, such as Reps. Joaquin Castro, Grace Meng and Jim Himes. Bush’s bundlers included lobbyist power players like Al Cardenas, Dirk Van Dongen and former Rep. Tom Loeffler.

Clinton and Bush also helped seed their own campaigns as they considered entering the race, reporting spending $279,000 and $389,000, respectively, from their own pockets on staffing and services. And both made use of private jets to hopscotch the country. Clinton paid nearly $180,000 to a charter plane company and Bush paid $281,000 for private jet use, including $153,000 to “The Johnson Co.,” apparently for the use of megadonor Woody Johnson’s jet for a European trip.

Both Clinton and Bush — as well as Cruz, Marco Rubio and other candidates — have deep-pocketed super PACs that raised tens of millions to support their campaign.

On the opposite end of the finance spectrum is the campaign of Democratic insurgent Bernie Sanders, which is not supported by a super PAC and has not courted big donors, yet managed to raise the second-biggest haul of the second quarter: $15.2 million.

An overwhelming 76 percent of Sanders’ money came from donors giving $200 or less, while only 4 percent came from max donors — perhaps unsurprising from a candidate whose campaign centers partly on reducing the influence of big money in politics.

Yet, more than populist zeal is powering Sanders’ impressive fundraising. His campaign paid $1.3 million for digital consulting and advertising services from Revolution Messaging, which has helped lead the senator’s digital fundraising and social media effort.

Other candidates also seemed to view data as the key early-campaign investment. Cruz spent more than $1.4 million renting voter and email lists from a handful of digital consulting firms, including Campaign Solutions, Mustard Seed Media, Pinnacle List Co., Targeted Victory, Lukens Co. and Active Engagement. The Texas senator also reported owing $556,000 to Cambridge Analytica for “survey research” and “donor modeling.” The firm is owned by the family of New York hedge fund magnate Bob Mercer, POLITICO revealed last week. Mercer and his family are among the biggest donors to a network of super PACs supporting Cruz that combined to raise $37 million, and at least one of the super PACs is in discussions with Cambridge Analytica about retaining the firm’s services.

The firm, which is relatively new to the competitive world of U.S. political data, provides nontraditional “psychographic” analyses of voters to try to win them over with narrowly targeted micro-messages. The Cruz campaign’s FEC report does not reveal any payments to the firm, just debt. The total owed would seem to indicate that Cruz is relying heavily on the firm for critical data work, but it also is an unusually large debt for a campaign to owe a single vendor early in the cycle.

Other candidates carrying significant debts included Clinton, who owed $574,000, including more than $553,000 to pollster John Anzalone’s firm; Bush, who owed $401,000, including $148,000 to a Michigan firm for a list he purchased; Republican Rick Santorum, who owed $125,000 after raising only $608,000.

Not including the debt, the candidates who finished June with the most in the bank were Clinton ($29 million), Sanders ($12 million), Rubio ($10 million), Cruz ($8.5 million), Bush ($8.4 million), Carson ($4.7 million), Rand Paul ($4 million) and Lindsey Graham ($2.6 million).

Burn rates:

Donald Trump 74.3 percent

Ben Carson 64.0 percent

Rick Santorum 61.8 percent

Mike Huckabee 55.8 percent

Ted Cruz 54.2 percent

Rick Perry 52.4 percent

Carly Fiorina 41.9 percent

Rand Paul 39.97 percent

Hillary Clinton 39.32 percent

O’Malley 34.5 percent

Lindsey Graham 30.4 percent

Jeb Bush 26.93 percent

Marco Rubio 23.8 percent

Bernie Sanders 20.2 percent

Bobby Jindal 11.2 percent