Campaign Spending 2016 - Who Has Spent the Most?

There is a wealth of information on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) website but, among the most interesting information has to do with campaign financing.  With the end of 2015 data having just been released, I wanted to take a look at the money being raised and spent by the campaign teams for the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates so far in the 2016 election cycle.

Here is a summary table for both the revenue and expenditure side of the ledger for the key candidates to the end of December 2015:

Here is a graph showing the total individual donations made to each candidate:

As you can see, Hillary Clinton has been the beneficiary of more individual donations than all other candidates and, in fact, raised more than 2.7 times what Bernie Sanders has raised and slightly more than Ted Cruz and Ben Carson have raised in combination, the top two fundraisers on the Republican side of the ledger.  Hillary Clinton has also raised more than twice what the top spender for the GOP, Ben Carson, has spent. 

Here is a graph showing the total operating expenses for each candidate so far:

Again, Hillary Clinton comes in top spot, spending nearly 5.5 times what Bernie Sanders has spent and as much as the top two Republican spenders, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, have spent in total.  I guess that's what happens when you feel that it's your destiny to occupy the Oval Office.

Lastly, here is a graph showing the cash on hand for each candidate's campaign:

Hillary Clinton's campaign alone has more cash on hand than the campaigns of Ben Carson, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio combined.

I wanted to close this posting with three interesting presidential campaigns that I stumbled on while looking through the FEC's records:

...and last, but not least, there's this candidate who has spent nothing so far....