Campaigns in Maryland: Does it Still Cost a lot to Win?

From the years 2015-2018, Senators, on average, received a contribution total of $266,000.00. This amount of contributions was a slight decrease from the 2014 election cycle, but it is still a significant amount of money raised for state senate seats on average. Delegates received an average contribution total of $125,499.00, which is a 64% increase from the 2014 election where the average amount fundraised was $79,878.00.

Most of the trends from the 2014 election cycle were present in the 2018 election cycle, including the county and region having a correlation with the amount that candidates were fundraising. Also, there were various candidates self-funding parts of their campaigns in small and large amounts. Overall, a consistent trend is the rise in cost of elections.

Bradford produced the report by using the state’s campaign finance database to gather each winning candidate’s total contributions from January 2015 through December 2018. She then averaged the contribution totals by region, and county.