How much do federal campaigns cost? The Center for Public Integrity published a listing of some interesting financial facts related to the 2014 mid-term elections in which they calculate that the estimated cost of the federal mid-terms to be at least $3.66 billion (others have estimated it to be $4 billion).

Where did all this money come from?

1,004 Super PACs and Hybrid PACs were registered as of late December of 2014. Of those PACs, 13 included the name “Hillary” or “Clinton” in their name. None of them included “Jeb” or “Bush.” Some of those PACs did more than just provide money though: the pro-Democratic PAC “Senate Majority PAC” ran over 50,200 ads, more than any other group. Some of those PACs made raised quite a bit of money too: liberal environmentalist Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action super PAC raised over $78 million all by itself.

What about non-PAC money? “Dark money” groups were plenty active as well: 6 key Senate races had at least 1 in 5 ads provided by dark money groups, and 3 of those Senate races had at least 1 in 4 ads provided by dark money. Illinois’ Republican Governor Bruce Rauner donated over $27.5 million to his own campaign.

You can find a full report here. What do you think: are we spending too much money on electing “public officials” (aka public servants)? Join the dialogue on Twitter.

At Voter Gravity we encourage PACs and campaigns of any size to rethink how they spend their money. Why waste money on things that don’t matter? We believe that money is saved when it is spent contacting the right voters at the right time with the right message. Focus and integrate. Request a Voter Gravity demo today to learn more.