How much did Trump, Biden and Harris raise? A stunning $4.7 billion.

WASHINGTON — Donors spent an astonishing $4.7 billion on the presidential contenders in this year’s general election, piling that amount into the campaign coffers of Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and their main allied groups over the course of the contest.

That sum emerged late Thursday with the release of the final campaign-finance reports from the campaigns and allied groups. The reports detailed the amount raised from Oct. 17 to Nov. 25, but The New York Times combined that with figures from previous federal filings for the most complete portrait yet of the money raised for the general-election candidates.

The Democrats, their allied super PACs and other groups raised about $2.9 billion, versus about $1.8 billion for the Republicans. As he did in 2016, Trump proved that money was not everything and that a thriftier campaign could beat a bigger spender. But his allied super political action committees in fact outraised those of Biden and Harris.

Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $1.2 billion from November 2022, the unusually early kickoff to his bid, through Election Day, according to the Times’ analysis. His main super PACs — MAGA Inc., Right for America, Turnout for America, America PAC and Preserve America — raised an additional $849 million over that period.

The Biden-Harris campaign, which avoided a competitive primary race, had much longer to collect money for its battle against Trump. Biden signed a joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee much earlier than Trump did with the RNC, allowing the Democrats to accept bigger checks. Fundraising for Democrats also surged after Harris took over the top of the ticket in the summer.

From when Biden announced his reelection campaign in April 2023 through Election Day, the operation raised about $2 billion. Its main allied super PACs — Future Forward and American Bridge — raised another $652 million or so over that period.

The overall $4.7 billion sum includes money raised during the Republican primary race by Trump and his super PACs, which was largely spent attacking other Republicans, as well as cash raised during that time by the Republican National Committee, which was not yet officially helping Trump. Crucially, the figure also does not include most of the cash raised by dark-money groups, which do not disclose their donors but often spend money on campaigns and elections.

Here are a few other takeaways from the final finance reports:

Shadowy cash is on the rise.

Dark money flowed into the campaign in the closing weeks.

The main super PACs backing Harris and Trump continued a trend of raising enormous amounts of money not from real people but from the super PACs’ own allied dark-money groups, which are set up as political nonprofits and are not required to disclose their donors. The inflow of that kind of cash — sometimes called “gray money” — troubles some transparency advocates because the true provenance of the funding remains undisclosed.

Trump’s main super PAC, MAGA Inc., raised about $78 million in the final weeks of the election. But about $53 million of that sum came from Securing American Greatness, its own affiliated dark-money group.

Future Forward, the main pro-Harris super PAC, took in almost $164 million in the most recent fundraising period. Over $128 million of that figure was not attributed to a real person or people, but to the super PAC’s dark-money nonprofit, Future Forward USA Action.

The Times previously reported that Future Forward and its nonprofit group had raised more than $900 million over the course of the election cycle. Future Forward USA Action took in $58 million in contributions in the calendar year 2023, according to a tax filing recently obtained by the Times. That money helped fund the super PAC the next year.

The campaigns have been clearing out their debts.

Campaigns and super PACs sometimes find themselves in a no-win situation with whatever cash they have on hand at the end of a race. It can be seen as irresponsible to go into debt. But it can also be seen as irresponsible to have failed to spend all the money, especially if you lose.

Campaigns do often finish in debt, and debts can be misleading because they sometimes include outstanding bills that will be paid after the end of a filing period. The Trump campaign committee, as of Nov. 25, had $11.4 million in unpaid bills, but the committee itself was owed $4.7 million. And it had almost $10 million on hand.

The Harris campaign drew negative headlines for being about $20 million in debt at the end of the race, but as of Nov. 25, the campaign reported no outstanding debt and about $2 million on hand.

At the same time, Future Forward, the main pro-Harris super PAC, disclosed a staggering $47.3 million in debt. An aide to the group said the amount related to the timing of invoices.

The Republican and Democratic National Committees each had over $40 million on hand. But some of that money could be reserved for transfers to state parties, legally set aside for specific purposes or used to pay the committees’ own outstanding bills.

Elon Musk spent big (really big) late in the race.

Elon Musk, combined with entities he controls, disclosed about $277 million in donations to federal groups this cycle, all in support of electing Trump.

The biggest share of that was to America PAC, the super PAC that Musk stealthily created in the spring of 2024 but did not start donating to until just after July 1, meaning that his involvement did not become public until the fall. Over the ensuing five months, Musk put $238.7 million into the group to pay for everything from ground-game outreach to payments to individuals described as “spokespeople.”

Musk was also revealed Thursday as the sole donor of a controversial super PAC, RBG PAC, that sought to insulate Trump on the issue of abortion by tying him to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal Supreme Court justice who died in 2020. Musk put $20 million into that group in late October.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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