Sources

Total cost of federal elections (CSV 03)

Total federal election spending by cycle (candidates + parties + outside groups), federal only, nominal dollars, from OpenSecrets, "Cost of Election." https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/cost-of-election

• Verified figures: 2016 $6.5B; 2020 $15.1B (OpenSecrets revised, originally ~$14.4B); 2022 $8.9B (federal — the often-cited $16.7B for 2022 includes state races); 2024 $14.8B final (exact $14,804,105,512 = congressional $9,499,667,508 + presidential $5,304,438,004).
• 2024 revision: OpenSecrets' preliminary 2024 figure was ~$15.9B (still $15.8B in captures through Jul 2025); once final FEC data published it was revised down to $14.8B (visible by the Oct 2025 capture). 2020 ($15.1B) is therefore the most expensive cycle on record in nominal as well as real dollars. Verified 2026-07-07 from the FusionCharts JSON embedded in Wayback captures of the OpenSecrets page (live site Cloudflare-blocks non-browser fetches), e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20260329212626/https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/cost-of-election?cycle=2020&display=T&infl=N
• Gotcha: the OpenSecrets page now defaults to inflation-adjusted numbers; nominal view requires display=T&infl=N. Our CSV 03 is nominal. The asterisks on 2012*/2016*/2020*/2024* mark presidential cycles, not preliminary figures.
• Earlier cycles (2000–2014, 2018) are OpenSecrets' long-published nominal cost-of-election totals: 2000 $3.1B · 2002 $2.2B · 2004 $4.1B · 2006 $2.9B · 2008 $5.3B · 2010 $3.6B · 2012 $6.3B · 2014 $3.8B · 2018 $5.7B.