Written: 5th December 2020
The United States of America (USA) and United Kingdom (UK) elections have always had one alarming difference; the sheer amount of campaign spending. With the UK having much tighter limits on what a political party can spend, currently set at £19.5 million (m) as of the 2019 general election, due to the limit of £30,000 per constituency (with there being 650 constituencies total). The USA is a behemoth by comparison, with the USA’s 2020 presidential election (along with the elections for the Senate and Congress) reaching a staggering total of $14 billion (bn), more than double the amount seen in 2016.
With the two primary presidential candidates of the 2020 race, now president-elect Joseph Biden, and current (soon to be former) President Donald Trump, making up a large amount of this spending. With the Biden campaign managing to raise over $1.3bn and spending over $1.1bn. While for the Trump campaign less was raised at $866m with $811m spent (both Biden and Trump receiving funding from a combination of campaign committee and outside groups).
Two pressing questions therefore must be answered. Can the USA be truly democratic with such large sums of money needed just to run a presidential campaign? As well as does campaign spending shape the UK’s democratic process?
In the case of the USA, campaign funding is now so significant, that it has integrated into the life of American citizens, and in many ways is a part of American culture. This has been seen with the rise of the political merchandising industry in the USA, with one of the most famous examples being the Trump MAGA (Make America Great Again) hats. This had led to creative counters by the campaigns of democratic nominees during the democratic primaries, with examples such as Andrew Yang’s MATH (Make America Think Harder), or Bernie Sanders ‘FEEL THE BERN’. This visible merchandising of politics is not inherently undemocratic, but it is clearly a clever way of generating money for the political campaigns.
However, it does give an undemocratic advantage to campaigns that are struggling to get off the ground. This being in most cases, campaigns from the minor parties in the USA such as the Green Party and Libertarian Party. As well as candidates from the two main parties (Republican and Democrat) that do not have the funding to generate enough awareness through advertisements and promotional merchandise (as mentioned above).
This is not much of an issue in the UK, in part thanks to the restrictions put in place (as mentioned earlier), leading to parties outside of the Conservatives and Labour having effective campaigns, with parties like the Liberal Democrats, SNP (Scottish National Party), and Green, all managing to win seats in the past general elections. Of course, these parties face restrictions within the UK democracy, although this is often put down to issues such as the voting system. The UK also does not have the same level of merchandising in politics, with common examples being rosettes, stickers, and house signs/posters.
Therefore, UK politics, at least in terms of financing election campaigns is not a threat to UK democracy. However, this cannot be said for the USA, with large sums of money being essential to the reach of a campaign. Seen most alarmingly with the dramatic increase in spending by both sides, particularly the Biden campaign which has managed to set the record for US politics.
Cameron Thomas