Campaign money in 2016 has become meaningless

[Commentary] Analyzing patterns of giving and receiving between donors and candidates can tell us things about the race, the strengths and weaknesses of particular candidates, and where a candidate's allegiances lie. In 2016, this type of analysis of campaign finance is somewhat informative about the candidates and the status of the race on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, the picture is much murkier. This is because the presumed Republican nominee hasn't raised much money at all.

As Donald Trump likes to brag, 75 percent of his campaign has been self-financed (although the veracity of this claim has been questioned). Trump touts this as an asset about his candidacy because it supposedly shows that he is not beholden to any particular interests. This may or may not be true, but at the very least it means we have less information about the coalition of people who support Trump, because there is just less campaign finance data on him. So, point No. 1 here is that campaign financing can tell us things about the candidates and the election, except when it doesn't. Point No. 2 is that the amount of money that has already been donated during this election cycle dwarfs previous cycles. So far candidates have raised $720 million, and the various Super PACs that support them have raised an additional $462 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In short, money is often a signal of something meaningful in politics, and 2016's election has a lot of money.