The total cost of US midterm elections 2022 will exceed $16.7 billion, research organization OpenSecrets projects said. The group noted that spending on federal elections alone has already exceeded the 2018 midterm spending record of $7.1 billion and is on pace to spend $8.9 billion.
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State-level races could possibly overtake the 2018 midterm election’s record spending of $6.6 billion, the group further said. Taken together, the $16.7 billion includes spending by political candidates, party committees, political action committees, super PACs, and other organizations advocating for or against candidates.
The spending, for perspective, will be around or in some cases less than the annual budgets of many US states like Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Vermont, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Rhode Island, Maine, Delaware, Alaska and Hawaii.
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The most expensive races are US Senate races in Georgia and Pennsylvania, the results of which could shift the balance of the Senate. Experts from OpenSecrets also said that the fundraising patterns in this election were abnormal.
“We had a really active and aggressive early year in the 2-year cycle,” Sarah Bryner, the director of research and strategy at OpenSecrets said.
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“This was almost entirely driven by individual donors,” Sarah Bryner said suggesting that the increase in donations during the earliest months of the 2021-2022 election cycle was driven by the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
