When money doesn’t buy everything

When money doesn’t buy everything

The 2016 presidential race is already expected to be the most money-soaked in history, reports Reuters’ Emily Flitter. With billionaires backing several of the contenders, campaign finance watchdog groups fear heavy spending by these ultra-rich Americans will warp the election. Big spenders, though, don’t always get their candidates into office. As this Reuters graphic shows, large sums of money don’t always translate into victory at the polls. Indeed, studies of the 2012 and 2014 elections by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit that tracks political spending, show that most groups backed by billionaires had less success swaying election outcomes than groups controlled by trade organizations or professional political strategists.

The most effective spender? Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose pro-Republican Independence USA  group scored a 100 percent success rate in getting its candidates elected.
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