What Has the Recent Rise in Campaign Spending Meant for Policy?

By Travis Rayome, Political History

The influence of moneyed interest in elections has become increasingly relevant in American politics over the past twenty years. This influence has reached new levels of concern in the second Trump Administration; over thirty different wealthy campaign donors, who collectively contributed hundreds of millions to Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign, have been appointed to key positions in his Cabinet (Matthews et. al 2024). The appointments of these donors to some of the highest positions in the American government highlight the power that political spending, specifically election spending, has increasingly held over the past few decades. Campaign spending can play a significant role in election outcomes, particularly when non-incumbent candidates are vying for public office (Le et. al 2024). This funding can come from individual donors, but is also often collected and distributed to a politician of choice through a political action committee, or PAC. The methods of donating to a campaign vary depending on the type of PAC, but they include funding for advertising and other partisan efforts, contributing directly to the campaign of the politician, and contributing to the political allies of a certain politician (Caltech 2025). Spending on elections can be seen as an extension of other systems of political spending like lobbying, where financial support is given to certain politicians because of (or, oftentimes, to encourage) their alignment with the donor’s interests. Given this understanding of campaign spending in contemporary politics, the appointment of numerous billionaire donors to Donald Trump’s Cabinet can be taken as an indication that the current system of election spending has led to private donors “buying” major influence over politics and interfering with public interest. Take SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk for example; his two companies are facing major investigations by numerous federal agencies for illegal and harmful practices. Despite this, he was granted leadership of the newly-founded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in January 2025 after contributing $200,000,000 to Donald Trump’s campaign; within three months, DOGE issued major funding cuts and mass layoffs targeting those federal agencies while Musk’s companies received billions in subsidies and contracts from the federal government (Darmiento 2025). The conflict of interest between the public sector’s power and private interests’ ever-increasing control over it cannot be any more visible.

The deep ties to moneyed interests within the Trump Administration is not an unprecedented phenomenon; it is the culmination of nearly two decades of policy and the increasing presence of private funding in the American political system. The Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo (1975) confirmed that restrictions around campaign spending implemented by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 are not in violation of the First Amendment, citing the greater potential for corruption and threats to the integrity of American democracy that unchecked contributions to politicians pose. However, opposing decisions made since then, such as the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC (2010), have posed challenges to limiting campaign spending. In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that spending on campaigns independent of party or candidate was protected by the First Amendment. In doing so, the Supreme Court not only set a precedent of applying First Amendment rights to corporations, but also gave rise to the Super-PAC. These PACs, whose operations are protected under the First Amendment as per Citizens United, contribute funds to marketing either side in an election without explicitly supporting a particular candidate or party, thereby making them “independent” under the law. This can help obscure major political contributions from billionaires and corporations to a particular politician’s campaign from public view and allow the contributors to avoid regulations. Super-PACs often complicate the process of tracking moneyed interest in politics and embolden private parties to spend more on elections (Brennan Center 2025). 

Political spending, especially campaign spending, is not necessarily done by private parties to push for a single decision or policy from a candidate of interest. Instead, in many cases, contributions can be seen as a “favor.” So, even if the amount is relatively modest or the donor is not seeking a specific position on a specific policy, their spending helps build a relationship with the candidate, incentivizing them to act with private interest in mind. A notable example of this kind of funding is the Amazon.com PAC, who have donated between $1,000-10,000 to the Congressional campaigns of over 200 Representatives and over twenty Senators, with overall PAC spending split evenly between Republican and Democrat candidates (OpenSecrets 2025). This pattern, combined with Amazon’s annual expense of tens of millions of dollars in lobbying efforts and heavy employment of “revolving-door” candidates [i.e., government insiders hired as paid lobbyists/government relations employees, who make up around 70% of Amazon’s lobbying team], demonstrates how campaign spending is an integral part of the framework for transactional relationships between private organizations and politicians (OpenSecrets 2025).

But how does campaign spending translate into policy? Can a campaign donor be deemed responsible for the policy decisions of a candidate to whom they’ve donated? For a case study of the practical effects of campaign spending on policy, one can analyze the campaign financing of Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY). Torres has received over $1.4 million in campaign contributions from the Pro-Israel lobby over the course of his Congressional career, with nearly half that amount coming specifically from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an organization dedicated to shifting public opinion on Israel’s military operations (OpenSecrets 2024). Torres represents New York’s 15th Congressional District, which comprises about half of the Bronx in New York City. Around 36.2% of Torres’ constituents live below the poverty line as of 2017, making it the poorest Congressional constituency in America (Johnson 2023). According to research from The Column, Torres has mentioned Israel around 2.5x more than he has brought up poverty in his public statements (“Israel” 337 times and “poverty” 143) between January 2021 and October 2023 (Johnson 2023). While not inherently “distracting” him from the economic concerns of his constituents, Torres’ support from the groups like AIPAC has resulted in pro-Israel advocacy becoming a large part of his public image, in many ways even more notable than his platform as an economic progressive. His vocal support for the military efforts of the Israeli Defence Force and efforts to improve the reputation of the Israeli state are woven through his public statements and often discussed more than the conditions facing his constituents. Thus, it can be inferred that the pro-Israel lobby’s seven-figure contribution to his Congressional campaign has influenced his conduct as a politician.

As already mentioned, New York’s 15th Congressional District is both the most impoverished constituency in the US and a constituency embedded within the heart of the country’s most expensive city, meaning Ritchie Torres’ constituents are deeply impacted by New York City cost-of-living soaring far beyond what is affordable to them (NYC Charter Revision Commission 2025). During his 2020 campaign for Representative of NY-15, Ritchie Torres received heavy criticism for his acceptance of over $800,000 in private funds from corporate landlords, land speculators, investment firms, and developers who were not only from outside Torres’ Congressional district, but also had an explicit financial stake in expensive real estate developments within it. For example, Mott Haven, a neighborhood within NY-15, saw a near-60% increase in rent in just two years leading up to Torres’ campaign and has a reputation among Torres’ campaign donors as a highly valuable real estate market (Olumhense and Velasquez, 2019). Torres’ succeeding runs for public office have continued the trend of large contributions from businesses with financial interest in the Bronx, with Torres receiving nearly $950,000 in funding from the real estate industry and over $1.6 million from the securities and investment industry in his 2024 campaign (OpenSecrets 2024). 

The influence of these donations from private companies cannot be discounted when examining the kinds of policies that Ritchie Torres supports when it comes to housing, such as his own 2024 bill, The Accelerated Supply of Affordable Production Housing Act (ASAP). The act prioritizes private development as a primary solution to the nationwide housing crisis by allowing exceptions to volume caps on private activity bonds and expanding tax credits to private developers, incentivizing them to build more affordable units (Office of Representative Ritchie Torres 2024). The solution benefits Torres’ campaign donors by giving them direct financial incentives to build housing in his district. In doing so, Torres’ policy prioritizes private-sector-led solutions that may potentially provide some more affordable units in the short run. Private-sector-led solutions, however, do not effectively address the deeper issues with the housing market, prevent harmful land speculation, nor curb the harmful practices that spur rapid increases in the cost of living in places like the Bronx’s Mott Haven. An analysis of housing market policies conducted for Harvard Business Review puts it best: “While nudging developers and landlords with incentives can marginally increase the supply of housing, they ultimately rest on a ‘trust the market’ strategy that has to date failed to solve the problem” (Callaci and Vaheesan 2024). 

The form of influence campaign funding takes can appear complex from the outside, but internally it can be seen as a system of “favors,” where a private organization contributes to a candidate’s election in exchange for goodwill that the politician can build upon by pushing certain policies or narratives that suit the interests of the donor. This can be in small amounts spread across hundreds of politicians, as seen with Amazon.com’s PAC, or it can be in large contributions made to relevant candidates of interest, as seen in real estate and investment firms in New York funding the Congressional campaigns of Ritchie Torres. No matter the type, given the appointment of numerous billionaire donors to high-ranking positions in Donald Trump’s second administration, the influence of campaign funding as a whole is a serious and prescient issue facing the United States, and given its escalation since the ruling on Citizens United vs. FEC, will likely remain one until its current upward trend is reversed.

References

Caltech Science Exchange. 2025. “Campaign Funding Explained: How Are Political Campaigns Financed?” https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/voting-elections/campaign-funding-finance-explained.

Le, Thanh, et. al. 2024. “Money in Politics: How Does It Affect Election Outcomes?” SAGE Open 14.4 (October). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241279659.

Brennan Center for Justice. 2025. “Influence of Big Money.” https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics/influence-big-money.

Oyez. “Buckley v. Valeo.” https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/75-436.

Oyez. “Citizens United v. FEC.” https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205.

OpenSecrets. 2025. “PAC Profile: Amazon.com.” https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/amazon-com/C00360354/summary/2024.

OpenSecrets. 2025. “Amazon.com Profile.” https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/amazon-com/summary?id=D000023883.

OpenSecrets. 2025. “Rep. Ritchie Torres – Campaign Finance Summary.” https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/ritchie-torres/summary?cid=N00044346.

Callaci, Brian and Vaheesan, Sandeep. 2024. “The Market Alone Can’t Fix the US Housing Crisis.” Harvard Business Review, September 12. https://hbr.org/2024/09/the-market-alone-cant-fix-the-u-s-housing-crisis.

Office of Representative Ritchie Torres. 2024. “Congressman Ritchie Torres Introduces The Accelerated Supply of Affordable Production Housing Act (ASAP Housing Act).” October 24. https://ritchietorres.house.gov/posts/congressman-ritchie-torres-introduces-the-accelerated-supply-of-affordable-production-housing-act-asap-housing-act.

New York City Charter Revision Commission. 2025. “The Housing Crisis and New York City.”  New York City Economic Development Corporation. https://edc.nyc/housing-crisis-and-new-york-city.

Olumhense, Ese and Velasquez, Josefa. 2019. “Ritchie Torres Reaps Real Estate Cash in Bronx Congress Run.” The City, October 21. https://www.thecity.nyc/2019/10/21/ritchie-torres-reaps-real-estate-cash-in-bronx-congress-run/.

Johnson, Adam. 2023. “Ritchie Torres Represents the Poorest District in the US. But He Mentions Israel 236% More Than He Mentions Poverty.” The Column, October 20. https://www.columnblog.com/p/ritchie-torres-represents-the-poorest.