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Fourteen billion dollars. This is the impressive sum spent by the candidates for the presidential and legislative elections in United States, an all-time record that shows the public willing to raise the stakes in the hinge states, motivated by a visceral rejection of the opposite side.
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That’s almost double what it spent four years ago and more than triple what it was in 2000, according to Center for Responsible Policy, an independent think tank on election spending. But, even if the expenses are record, it does not guarantee the success of any candidate.
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This is illustrated by the year 2020: Democrats, seeking to regain control of the Senate, have spent relentlessly to snatch Republican heavyweight seats like Upper House Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) or Susan Collins (Maine), but they failed.
“Wasted” money
Democrat Jaime Harrison was easily defeated by Lindsey Graham after spending a record $ 108 million, much more than his opponent, thanks to donations from the Democrats across the country, according to Karl Evers-Hillstrom of the Center for Responsible Policy.
“To all the progressives in California and New York I say: they wasted a lot of money,” Graham joked after his re-election.
Another resounding defeat was that of Amy McGrath, a candidate to defeat Mitch McConnell, a 45-year Senate and Democrat nightmare, recently vilified for orchestrating the swift appointment of the Conservative judge. Amy Comey Barrett at the Supreme Court, days before the presidential election.
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McGrath, a former fighter pilot, unsuccessfully burned $ 88 million in the second most expensive battle in US Senate election history.
The Republicans have lost some expensive but less spectacular bets. They raised $ 10 million from across the country to prevent the representative from being re-elected in New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, star of the leftmost wing of the Democratic party and the embodiment of the alleged “socialist” threat denounced by the Trumpists.
But the 31-year-old lawmaker, a social media ace, beat her rival, the former policeman and teacher at a Catholic school, by 38 percentage points. John Cummings, 60, after raising 17 million for his campaign in one of the most expensive electoral battles of Low camera.
The fury, source of donations
Faced with these losing bets, electoral finance pundits like to remember him in too United States, where almost unlimited electoral donations are allowed, “an election cannot be bought”.
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“If you are in a deeply republican state, the chances (of a Democratic victory) are close to zero,” Evers-Hillstrom said. For the former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, one of the richest men in the world, learning his lesson in the Democratic primary got hurt: he failed to prevail despite spending $ 550 million. So why do you spend so much?
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For Michael Malbin, professor of political science at the State University of New York (SUNY), much is due to the increasing polarization of the time Trump. Motivation is one of the essential elements for every donor, said this election funding expert.
“The anger and rejection” of both “Trumpism” and the “left”, for example, “are more powerful motivators” than support for a particular cause, he noted. It is therefore not surprising that the largest sums are concentrated in campaigns of candidates who ignite passions, like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham or AOC
While thousands of donors finance these ultra-mediated battles, “90% of the country’s election campaigns are underfunded,” Malbin pointed out. The higher amounts are also explained by the simplification in donating money to a candidate thanks to digital technology, in which the Democrats led the way with their ActBlue platform, launched in 2004.
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“It has become incredibly simple, kind of Amazon about politics, “Malbin said.” Just one click. “Under these conditions, no one expects a drop in electoral spending in the near future.” If we continue as polarized as we are now, we can expect a lot of money to be spent, ”Evers-Hillstrom said.
AFP
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