Welcome back to a numbers game with Ryan Gurdowski.

Thank you for being here this week.

As always, I want to remind listeners that all the data on this podcast will be up on my

substack and go read it and go to natpop newsletter.com for 30-day free subscription.

So this week, I would like to talk to you guys about money in politics and politics

in general. It's a big conversation that we've had in the country because it costs a lot of money

to run for public office. In the 21 months, the church along 2023 to the 2024 campaign cycle,

billions of dollars went to the campaigns from the top of the ballot to the

bottom.

Canada's running for president alone, just the presidency, raised $1.626 billion and spent $1.3.23 billion.

But that's not all.

Canada's running for Congress raised $3.27 billion and spent $2.77 billion.

Party committees raised $2.1 billion and spent $1.8. And Sue Pax raised $12.25 billion and spent $10.9 billion.

Altogether, that means candidates and their respected committees and PACs running for federal office raised 19.25 billion and spent $16.793 billion.

Now, it sounds like an insane number, and it is, but it's actually less than American spent on Easter.

American spent $20.6 billion on Easter. But it's still a lot of money,

and it's just for federal. It's not including the local races, the governors that happened in 2024,

the mayors, the city councils, the school boards, the state legislatures, which are a lot more.

But it's still a lot of money. And it's only going to go up over time, especially people moving

money to super PACs, which are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money. Fundraising for presidential committees actually hasn't

gone up so much in 2008. That's when all the candidates running for president in both the primary

and the general and third parties raised $1.6 billion as well. Money in politics is very intimidating.

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