As the US presidential election approaches, the competition between candidates from both parties in the United States has entered the most intense final sprint stage.
On Sunday Eastern Time, the financial disclosure submitted by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' team showed that the Harris team spent a huge $270 million on campaign advertising in September, far exceeding its competitor, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose campaign spending in September was only $78 million.
The data also shows that the Harris team's fundraising scale far exceeds Trump's: Harris raised a total of $222 million in campaign funds in September, while Trump only raised $63 million.
Harris has an advantage in campaign funding
Since July of this year, when US President Biden announced the end of his re-election campaign and Democratic Vice President Harris officially began his campaign, the Harris team has established a huge economic advantage.
In recent months, Harris has been raising more funds from small donors than from Trump, and the same was true in September. However, many billionaires, including billionaire Elon Musk, have strongly supported Trump and have invested a significant amount of resources into activities that support him.
According to another document submitted to the Federal Election Commission, one of Trump's biggest ally organizations, the Super Political Action Committee "Make America Great Again Inc.," received a $25 million donation from conservative billionaire Timothy Mellon in September.
Timothy Mellon is the heir of the well-known Mellon Bank family. Earlier this year, he had already provided at least $115 million to the super political action committee, with most of its spending focused on supporting Trump's television commercials.
Harris' major supporters include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen.
Harris' campaign team told the Federal Election Commission that in early October of this year, there was still $187 million in their campaign account, while Trump's campaign team reported a figure of $120 million.
Spending more money ≠ winning steadily?
Although data shows that the Harris team spent a lot of money in the final sprint stage before the election, promoting it comprehensively through overwhelming television advertisements, this may not necessarily bring victory to Harris.
Many polls show that the current election prospects of the two candidates are still evenly tied, including in key swing states where the winner may be determined.
According to the polling data website FiveThirtyEye, as of October 19th, Harris' approval rating in national polls in the United States was only slightly higher than Trump's by 1.8 percentage points.
In fact, in the 2016 presidential election, Trump raised and spent much less campaign funds than his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, but Trump ultimately defeated Clinton, which surprised the market.