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According to Russell Brand:

Screencast with Russell Brand

Every election in American history has been won by the party with the most money to campaign.

Let's assume that he means every presidential election. Has every presidential election in U.S. history been won by the party with the most money to campaign?

Edit: To make this question answerable, let's stick to elections recent enough where campaign financing is publicly available.

Brythan
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gerrit
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    Beware of precedents http://xkcd.com/1122/ – Linkyu Feb 20 '15 at 03:40
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    Given the complexity of campaign finance, and the many entities contributing and spending money, how do you propose to define how much money a party "has" to campaign? – Nate Eldredge Feb 20 '15 at 04:55
  • @NateEldredge: not that I particularly want to defend Russell Brand's political theory, but you could do that by having the campaign and not bother with the actual ballot. Holding up a hand of course wouldn't work at all as a system, since one side or the other might (gasp!) lie. Since Brand doesn't believe politicians to be scrupulously honest, that suggestion must be hyperbole. Or you could literally just auction the presidency, Congress can pass a budget to decide what to do with the proceeds. Personally I feel that would be worse than the current system, but I'm not Brand. – Steve Jessop Feb 20 '15 at 10:15
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    @SteveJessop I'm pretty sure the whole proposal is a joke. You did pick that up, right? –  Feb 20 '15 at 10:40
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    @fredsbend: we could ask a separate question, "it has been claimed that Brand proposes abandoning electoral politics by not voting: is *anything* Russell Brand says actually a genuine political proposition as opposed to just a joke?". But we might find that's unanswerable ;-) Of course this remark is a joke, but I think Brand probably intends that the only part that's actually implausible is the candidates self-reporting their available funds. The part about elections being bought he means seriously: even if he's wrong he means it. – Steve Jessop Feb 20 '15 at 10:46
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    This is difficult to answer unless specified cleanly. For example, the [NYT has a breakdown](http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance) of the 2012 presidential election. Obama (as a candidate) raised and spent more than Romney did, but the Republican party spent more than the Democratic party, and the PAC situation muddles it up even more. Adding it up, Obama's "side" *raised* a bit more than Romney's, but *spent* a bit less (if you agree with the NYT: [Open Secrets](https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/) has different numbers due to the grey areas involved). How do we interpret this? – Is Begot Feb 20 '15 at 14:22
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    There's also the question of correllation vs. causation. It seems likely that the more popular candidate--the one who will eventually win--will be able to raise more donations by virtue of his popularity. – KSmarts Feb 24 '15 at 23:00
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    @KSmarts Except that money and donations are not equally distributed over the population, and that some candidates might raise a lot of money from a relatively small number of donors. – gerrit Feb 24 '15 at 23:03
  • @georgechalhoub I think it is implicit in the claim that it is about all *past* races, not all future ones ;-) – gerrit Feb 26 '15 at 04:33
  • @KSmarts Which explains why it's only true in most cases and not in all. – David Mulder Mar 30 '15 at 10:32
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    Donald Trump spend less than Hillary and he won. – user21795 Nov 15 '16 at 06:04

2 Answers2

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No, it isn't true.

The most clear example is 1964.

According to "Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics" at page 65:

Barry Goldwater's losing campaign spent $17.2 million, significantly more than Johnson's $12 million expenditure

The book references the statement to: Herbert E. Alexander and Harold B. Meyers, “The Switch in Campaign Giving,” Fortune, November 1965, 103–8.

Another source has the following list and says it is from New York magazine but independently verified (winners are in bold, the second candidate spent more):

1960
John F. Kennedy: $9.8 million
Richard Nixon: $10.1 million

1964
Lyndon Johnson: $8.8 million
Barry Goldwater: $16 million

1968
Hubert Humphrey: $11.6 million
Richard Nixon: $25.4 million

1972
George McGovern: $30 million
Richard Nixon: $61.4 million

1976
Jimmy Carter: $33.4 million
Gerald Ford: $35.8 million

1980 Jimmy Carter: $49 million
Ronald Reagan: $57.7 million

1984
Walter Mondale: $66.7 million
Ronald Reagan: $67.5 million

1988
Michael Dukakis: $77.3 million
George H.W. Bush: $80 million

1992
George H.W. Bush: $92.6 million
Bill Clinton: $92.9 million

1996
Bill Clinton: $108.5 million
Bob Dole: $110.2 million

2000
Al Gore: $127.1 million
George W. Bush: $172.1 million

2004
John Kerry: $328.5 million
George W. Bush: $367.2 million

2008
John McCain: $350.1 million
Barack Obama: $745.7 million

While there are a few other example in the list of the losing candidate spending slightly more, 1964 is the only clear example of the losing candidate spending significantly more.

From another point of view, Ross Perot certainly could have outspent Clinton and Dole if he wanted to.

Update 2016: according to What Trump and Hillary Spent vs Every General Election Candidate Since 1960 the following is spending by each candidate in real dollars from 1960-2016:

enter image description here

The Federal Election Commission says Clinton 563.9 million, Trump 328.4 million.

Brythan
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DavePhD
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  • @georgechalhoub The book cites to the article "The switch in campaign giving" Fortune, November 1965, pages 103-108 by Alexander and Meyers. – DavePhD Mar 28 '15 at 15:29
  • @georgechalhoub also, try this link to see page 65 https://books.google.com/books?id=QB_yaVi7-vkC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=%22Barry+Goldwater%27s+losing+campaign+spent%22&source=bl&ots=yEnGIxsmTG&sig=kIqd-hjrz0DA-otG9P8YnvPR89E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=08cWVYPcIomzggSylISoDQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Barry%20Goldwater's%20losing%20campaign%20spent%22&f=false – DavePhD Mar 28 '15 at 15:31
  • @georgechalhoub ok, I added the citation (#48) exactly as it appears on page 297 of the book, "notes to pages 62-66" – DavePhD Mar 28 '15 at 15:47
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    and interestingly enough, in many cases the difference is small, even within error margins. Also, remember that the figures aren't always accurate. Some funding may be used for other things, not used at all, some campaigns may have unreported funds, people putting in private money that's not in the books (think someone using their private ATM or credit card to pay for lunch or gas during a road trip rather than campaign funds). – jwenting Apr 01 '15 at 04:19
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    Now Trump can be added to the list of counter-examples. – Andrew Grimm Nov 13 '16 at 00:03
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    @AndrewGrimm yes, I will add – DavePhD Nov 13 '16 at 00:34
  • "The candidate with the most money" means "the candidate who has the most money", not "the candidate who spends the most money". You do not answer the question. – fdb Nov 13 '16 at 22:47
  • @fdb I said "From another point of view, Ross Perot certainly could have outspent Clinton and Dole if he wanted to" and that would apply to Trump too. – DavePhD Nov 13 '16 at 23:43
  • And even in several of the cases where the biggest spender did win, the difference is not statistically significant... – jwenting Nov 14 '16 at 08:00
  • @fdb money not spent may as well not have existed for the purpose of the campaign as it has no influence on the execution of the campaign. – jwenting Nov 14 '16 at 08:01
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    @jwenting Not on the campaign itself, but if you assume influence to be proportional to wealth, then being richer than your opponent could still be contribute to your chances to be elected. I agree that this answer does not quite fit the question. As a final remark, speaking of statistical significance when comparing two numbers which are not means and do not come out of any well-defined population is nonsensical. – Erik Nov 14 '16 at 08:45
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    Wow! Obama in 2008 outspent the **total** (not adjusted for inflation) spent by the highest spending candidate 1960 to 2000. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Jul 03 '19 at 08:54
  • Lets remember that 1. Citizens United was upheld by SCOTUS in 2010, which significantly changed the amount , source and path of election spending. I think anything prior is probably apples and oranges. 2. Some candidates poked around social media pre-2016 but that year changed the $-spend equation significantly - different paradigm now. – Serexx Nov 09 '20 at 09:28
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There are two ways to interpret this. One is that when we're talking about the "richer" candidate, what we really mean is the campaign that spends more. There is already an answer showing that isn't true, as there have been three exceptions from 1960 to now: 1960, 1964, and 2016. This is rather clearly the claim from the question:

Every election in American history has been won by the party with the most money to campaign.

The other way is that the richer candidate is the person who happens to be richer. I don't think that this is the claim from the question, but others disagree. This interpretation may fix the three exceptions. John F. Kennedy was almost certainly richer than Richard Nixon. Lyndon B. Johnson may well have been richer than Barry Goldwater. Donald Trump was almost certainly richer than Hillary Clinton.

Wikipedia has a list of presidents by net worth. The list is based on "The Net Worth of the American Presidents: Washington to Trump". 24/7 Wall St. 247wallst.com. November 10, 2016. Retrieved April 10, 2019. 

John F. Kennedy  $1100 million
Richard Nixon      $17 million
Lyndon B. Johnson $109 million
Donald Trump     $3100 million
Bill Clinton       $75 million

It does not include Barry Goldwater, who was never president, but another source puts Goldwater at less than $1 million.

Hillary Clinton is not included, but presumably she had the same net worth as Bill.

Kennedy is not listed on Wikipedia so went back to the source.

Even assuming that this fixes those three exceptions, it opens up a whole new set. 

Barack Obama $40 million
George W. Bush $39 million

Now, let's compare to three of their challengers.

Mitt Romney had between $190 and $250 million (source), which is greater than Obama's peak of $40 million. Obama's peak came after Obama left office. In 2012, I believe he had $10-20 million, mostly from book royalties. Example source.

John McCain had at least $20 million (source). By the same source, Obama had less than $4 million in 2008. It's also worth noting that most sources peg Cindy McCain's wealth at $200 million. Regardless, $20 million is larger than $4 million.

John Kerry had $274 million in 2004 (source) and was the richest Senator. This is well ahead of George W. Bush's peak net worth of $39 million.

So of the last four presidential elections, three were won by the poorer candidate.

Under this interpretation, the claim actually does worse. Of course, that may be because the current situation is different. But looking back further finds that Herbert Hoover was richer than Franklin D. Roosevelt (both are in the Wikipedia list). And Teddy Roosevelt was richer than Woodrow Wilson. In 1992, Bill Clinton was much poorer than George H. W. Bush (although he would later become richer).

Brythan
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