Repealing the Citizen’s United ruling and denying large corporations the ability to buy elections has long been a rallying cry on the left, but what happens when your candidate gets the most money in donations and a self-financed conservative with no real super PAC comes in and takes the cake?
That’s what happened this year, Donald Trump’s unorthodox campaign managed to put him over the top of 16 other Republicans and eventually Hillary Clinton to become the president-elect.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the biggest donations in the 2016 elections:
Republicans raked in some serious cash
According to Open Secrets, several candidates who barely made a dent in the primaries raked in many millions of dollars.
Jeb Bush, in combination with his Right to Rise USA super PAC, netted $155,822,452 and barely won four delegates in the process. Rivals Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz gathered $162,500,053 and $143,008,247, respectively.
Democrats raked even more cash than the GOP
And the winner is …Donald Trump!
Trump was the single biggest GOP donor — spending over $66,000,000 on his own campaign. The real-estate mogul actually spent far less on advertising and won the presidency with a fraction of the fundraising that rival Hillary Clinton had.