The Money Race for the White House

Why do presidential candidates need so much money?

"An American presidential election is like a world war fought on many fronts in which you really have to deploy your forces across a large geographical area," said Ross Baker, professor of political science at Rutgers University. Candidates seeking the nomination of their parties undergo a complex series of tests in individual states' primaries, which occur over a number of months. The earlier primaries tend to be more important because the parties coalesce around the leaders as weaker candidates start dropping out.