Donors spent an astonishing $4.7 billion on the presidential contenders in this year’s general election, piling that amount into the campaign coffers of Donald J. Trump, Kamala Harris, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and their main allied groups over the course of the contest.
That sum emerged late Thursday with the release of the final campaign-finance reports from the campaigns and allied groups. The reports detailed the amount raised from Oct. 17 to Nov. 25, but The New York Times combined that with figures from previous federal filings for the most complete portrait yet of the money raised for the general-election candidates.
The Democrats, their allied super PACs and other groups raised about $2.9 billion, versus about $1.8 billion for the Republicans. As he did in 2016, Mr. Trump proved that money was not everything, and that a thriftier campaign could beat a bigger spender. But his allied super PACs in fact out-raised those of Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris.
Mr. Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $1.2 billion from November 2022, the unusually early kickoff to his bid, through Election Day, according to The Times’s analysis. His main super PACs — MAGA Inc., Right for America, Turnout for America, America PAC and Preserve America — raised an additional $849 million over that period.
The Biden-Harris campaign, which avoided a competitive primary race, had much longer to collect money for its battle against Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden signed a joint fund-raising agreement with the Democratic National Committee much earlier than Mr. Trump did with the R.N.C., allowing the Democrats to accept bigger checks. Fund-raising for Democrats also surged after Ms. Harris took over the top of the ticket in the summer.