ABSTRACT
In many ways, candidates have become more dependent on monied interests
to help them get elected: the race for office has become a race for money.
Running for Congress The cost of mounting an effective race for Congress has increased dramatically during the past decade. In the 1989-90 election cycle, U.S. House and Senate races spent $128.2 million on polling and television and other media, with an additional $85.5 million spent on fundraising.1 In 1996, a record $499 million was spent by candidates for the House and $341 million by candidates for the Senate. The average cost of winning a Senate seat in 1996 was $4.7 million; the average cost of winning a House seat was $673,000, up 30 percent from 1994.2
The 1996 elections also saw a record amount of spending on issue advocacy advertising. Since funds for issue ads do not have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission, we can only guess at the total amount spent. At the federal level, the best estimate of issue advocacy expenditures in the 1996 election was $135 million to $150 million.3 In 1997 alone, at least a year away from the next election, federal candidates raised $232.9 million, a new record for a nonelection year, according to the Federal Election Commission. Altogether, a total of $781 million was spent on federal elections during the 1998 cycle, far surpassing the 1996 campaigns.4
