Caruso on track to exceed $100 million in campaign spending in 2016
(Photo by Jeff Chiu/Getty Images for RGR)
By Mike DiSanto
The Campaign for America’s Future’s “Top Secret Service” database shows that, based on all of the money spent by candidates so far in 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would be the second most generous candidate — spending more than $61 million over the first six months of the year — and the most generous Republican is Donald Trump, who’s already exceeded $100 million of his own money as of Jan. 1.
We’re at the end of August, and just months later, it’s hard to know how much Sanders and Trump will have spent by then. But based on their combined spending for the year so far, the two top candidates are already more than $150 million in the hole, according to the TopSecretService.org website that tracks presidential campaign donations.
Sanders has already topped the $100 million mark with his $61 million in 2016, and is spending $31 million this month alone. But he’d have to reach the $100 million mark by Dec. 31, 2016, to actually be able to spend $100 million that year.
Top Secret Service, of course, includes the millions spent by all candidates, but only those who have made super-majorities of their respective parties — a majority, in any given year, is required to get on the ballot and win the election.
So, this week, we asked four of the most astute political journalists in the world to calculate how much each of the candidates have spent so far in the race for president. These are our five-figure forecasts of how much each candidate will have spent by the end of 2016.
The data on this page, provided by the campaign of the candidate under the question of this story, is based on the Federal Election Commission’s reports submitted every calendar month since Jan. 1, 2014. It represents the total reported from political action committees, and not including contributions to super PACs.
Sanders, the Independent: $61.2 million
Sanders’ haul, which includes his own funds, has been huge. But with contributions for the first six months of 2016 so far, he has already