I’m personally very data-driven so if you have a source, I would be happy to have it reviewed. I do think fundraising and PAC money is counted separately but that’s counted in the second source in my parent comment.
It’s true that there were very high individual contributions during the 2024 election cycle and I think this could be somewhat attributed to the assertion that these donors face a targeted existential threat and as self interested actors they’re contributing to candidates who will mitigate risk and impacts.
I also did notice that between 2022 and 2024 there’s a flipping of the script where George Soros in 2022 was the top donor (1) but was then replaced by a donor for the Republicans in 2024. Of course I think the top donors always make themselves subjects for management at newspapers to delegate to their employees to report on. We can ask why the script flipped, perhaps the Democrats have been losing wealthy donor or perhaps the Democrats had a fragile strategy that depended on a wealthy donor who transferred power to his son who donates less.
I think the best question to ask is “How do we as Americans ensure that each individual voter has the fairest voting power and has equal and sufficient access to relevant information and is educated enough to make an informed voting decision with sufficient judgment.”
1 - https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-hub/contributors?tab=b...