The 2016 Election Had A Huge Price Tag

The 2016 election campaign certainly broke new ground but it also broke the bank. According to campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.org, the final bill for the election came to $6.5 billion. Of that amount, the presidential race accounted for $2.4 billion while congressional contests came to $4 billion. The cost of the 2016 presidential campaign was lower than both 2008 ($2.8 billion) and 2012 ($2.6 billion) while the price of congressional elections hit an all-time high.

The financial outlay was divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans with each party covering 47.7 percent of the total cost (the remaining 4.6 percent came from independents). $6.5 billion is a massive sum of money and the Washington Post recently tried to put it into perspective. They calculated that $6.5 billion could fix Flint Michigan's lead problem 30 times over, provide 15 years of funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or give every public school teacher in America a $2,000 raise.