Have you ever run a large political campaign? A few questions:

[OneGrassRoot]

So we know that the 2012 Presidential election cost approximately $2 BILLION, and a US Senate seat averages $10.5 million.


1. What is the breakdown of expenses? Is there a website that shows the breakdown of where this money goes? We are able to see how much has been raised for each candidate, and I did find a few articles saying that approximately one-third of the $2 Billion raised in the last presidential election went to ad buys.

Where does the rest go?

With social media, why the exorbitant expense for traditional media (other than media itself lobbying and making a killing off of this process)?


2. For the candidates who lose (Palin, for example), where does the money raised go? Does anyone track that in a reliable way?

[BubbaFett]

1. Media buys are the largest expense

tv, print, radio, internet.

You can go state by state and look up expense reports on state election board websites. Federal government has spending reports too.

[OneGrassRoot]

3. Excellent, thank you. :) n/t

[MohRokTah]

2. Every campaign manages expenses differently

1) Short answer, "it depends". Romney managed his money very poorly and got less bang for his buck. The Obama campaign managed their money well and you see the results. Media buys, when timed properly, can be incredibly big bang for the buck. Buying the ad time late means it costs you more for less. A lot of money needs to go into the ground game of GOTV.

2) Most of it is spent. Anything left over usually goes into a PAC. The FEC tracks this and candidates must report it.

[OneGrassRoot]

4. Thanks very much. :) n/t

[dsc]

5. many losing campaigns have nothing left over and in point of fact end in debt

John Glenn spend decades trying to pay his campaign debt from his Presidential run in 84 for example. In 2004 the FEC granted him a reprieve to let him use other funds to pay it.

[OneGrassRoot]

6. I wonder if that's true today, in Citizens United times...

and exorbitant fundraising as well as expenditures?

It may be. Thanks.

[dsc]

7. Hillary had debt in 2008

but she and Obama jointly fundraised to retire it.

[OneGrassRoot]

8. Got it. Thanks again. :) n/t

[tabbycat31]

9. I've worked on several campaigns

A good campaign manager will have a detailed budget about the campaign's expense.

Media buys (ads) are by far the biggest expense of a campaign. They also have to pay for staff, office space, supplies (you can get a lot donated/borrowed), direct mail (those cost about 50 cents each and when you send upwards of 10K per piece, it adds up), walk pieces (about 20-30 cents each), postage, phones, etc.

Not all districts are very social media savvy and it also depends who you want to reach. If you want to reach the Medicare crowd, chances are Twitter is not the place. A lot of people are also tuning out politics when it comes to social media. It's a good tool to connect with your supporters but most candidates are not going to reach an undecided voter on Facebook.

As a staffer, I like social media for inviting supporters to events (although phone is the only reliable way) and to share photos from events. That is about it. A candidate has yet to tweet their way to victory.

As for losing candidates, win or lose, things still have to be paid for. Staff payments, rent payments on offices, outstanding contracts, etc. Many campaigns do a staff party after the election too.

It's up to the candidate what they do with leftover funds. Many will run again and use the leftover funds for the second run. Others will donate the money to other candidates, the state party, etc.. I'm not a finance staffer so I can't really answer this authoratively.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. Thank you very much, tabbycat31. :) n/t

[SheilaT]

11. I ran a small political campaign once.

My own when I ran for office. And yes, most of the money spent was connected to media, although I wasn't running ads anywhere. I needed to pay for yard signs and the cards I (and my helpers) passed out when we went door-to-door.

I got about half of the money from donations, the other half was my own money. Since I was running for a state office, my state, Kansas, did require an accounting of where the money came from and how it was spent. I had a wonderful treasurer who did all that for me.

Oh, and what a lot of those who use social media a lot don't seem to understand, is that far from everyone is participating in that. And even those who are, may not stumble across a specific ad for something. Which is why TV and radio ads are so important. Which is also why I count myself fortunate not to own a TV, because I see almost no political ads at all, other than whatever Rachel Maddow may show to illustrate something.

It doesn't matter so much if you're the winning or the losing candidate, although losing ones, especially in a national campaign, often wind up owing money, typically for the media buys, that takes years to pay.

As an aspiring writer who attends writers conferences, I'm also running into the assumption that a writer must absolutely have a presence on the internet or not a single book will get sold. I can tell you that I find out about books from friends, from the two book forums here on DU (which I suppose counts as social media but isn't at all what the "Writers MUST be on social media" folks are referring to), reading book reviews, and browsing at the library or bookstores. And that's how I've been finding books to read my whole literate life, although DU is a relatively recent addition.

[OneGrassRoot]

12. I hear you....

I fully realize everyone isn't online, or on social media even if they do use other online platforms. And it is hard to be heard over the overwhelming amount of content there.

However, I also don't think people are really paying attention to TV ads either in this day and age of DVRs. Most Americans loathe campaign commercials and don't pay attention, so I tend to believe those expenditures aren't as helpful as they were in previous times.

For the people who aren't online, a grassroots GOTV campaign is critical, and I understand that isn't free.

It's the TV ads that I question these days.