# UPDATE: Campaign Finance Scale Post-Citizens United Following our analysis from yesterday on the unprecedented spending surge after the 2010 Supreme Court decision, new FEC filings show that total outside spending in the 2024 cycle has already exceeded $2.6 billion—surpassing the entire 2020 general election total by mid-campaign season. This acceleration underscores how Citizens United fundamentally restructured the financial architecture of American politics, enabling unlimited corporate and union contributions to independent expenditure groups. For context, spending in the 2008 cycle was under $300 million; the post-Citizens United era represents roughly an 800% increase in inflation-adjusted terms.