It seems like a simple question: Who has raised more money this cycle, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida or Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky? But it’s not very simple, although there is a way to tally it that makes sense in the real world of campaigning.  On an absolute basis, Mr. Rubio brought in significantly more money than Mr. Paul, his potential rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination: $9.9 million through March 31 versus $6.3 million, according to Federal Election Commission records. But that’s not exactly a good comparison.  Politicians tend to use three different vehicles for fund-raising: a campaign account for the next election, a leadership political action committee for spreading money to allies and enhancing their reputations; and a joint committee that makes it easier to raise money for the first two. This matters, because the answer to the original question depends not only on which committees you include in the calculations, but also whether and how you weigh their activity.  Through March 31, Mr. Paul has raised $4 million for his campaign account, twice as much as Mr. Rubio’s $1.9 million. But Mr. Rubio’s PAC has done better than Mr. Paul’s, raising $2.8 million to $1.9 million. Combining those two, Mr. Paul comes out ahead, $5.9 million to $4.7 million.  The murky part is in the joint committees, which politicians use to solicit larger checks from donors, with the money then parceled out to multiple recipients. Mr. Rubio’s joint committee has raised $8.2 million, of which $3 million was distributed to his campaign and leadership committees. But he also used it heavily for direct-mail fund-raising solicitations. In other words, money used for making more money, not actual campaigning. All told, Mr. Rubio’s joint committee spent 61 percent of the money it raised on operations, including mail and travel, to raise more money. The comparable figure for Mr. Paul’s joint committee was 13 percent.  It’s not that the total amount raised doesn’t matter. It’s that practically everyone who deals with the campaign finance system — including journalists — has elevated that number above all others. That makes a certain amount of sense, but the amount raised alone doesn’t tell the whole story. It may not even present an accurate one.  As expensive as political campaigns have become, there’s no good purpose served by reporting inflated numbers without context. But that’s what happens when candidates and the news media make milestones more important than what the money is used for during the campaign. The rise of online contributions, which cost campaigns much less than direct-mail or fund-raising events, only makes this more important.  Just as we do with monthly jobs reports or other releases of data, we often focus in campaigns on big numbers instead of the best numbers. A more realistic approach would be to deal with the money that candidates have to spend to win their races, not just the total amount they bring in.  Here’s a suggestion: Instead of repeating the summary numbers from F.E.C. filings, we could create a better method for comparisons. It would require some calculations on the part of journalists, but that’s why we have spreadsheets. Call it the “net receipts” approach. This could be calculated in two ways, one simpler and the other more rigorous. First the simple way:  Net raised = campaign committee receipts + leadership PAC receipts + joint committee cash  This formula removes most of the money that is spent by the joint committee, on the ground that it is usually dedicated to fund-raising work and not directly on campaigning. The cash that the joint committee still has is included because some or all of it could yet make its way to the campaign or leadership committees (or to a party committee). By this measure, Mr. Paul’s $6.1 million outpaces Mr. Rubio’s $4.8 million.  Although the Florida senator has raised more money than his Kentucky colleague, fund-raising costs mean he has less to use for other activities.  The more complex way, for when joint committees don’t play a significant role, involves digging into categories of spending:  Net raised = (campaign committee receipts + leadership PAC receipts) - total fund-raising expenses  This method includes all receipts, but then removes the money the joint committee sends to its affiliated partners and fund-raising expenses by all three committees.  A “net receipts” calculation might seem to penalize Mr. Rubio for using direct mail (or reward Mr. Paul’s leaner fund-raising operation), but without it, candidates who raise money via direct mail will almost always outraise their opponents, and yet a large chunk of that money will not be spent on campaign activity. While a very successful method of raising money, direct mail is also very costly, so a good chunk of the proceeds is consumed by the process of designing, printing and mailing solicitations. That can lead to misleading totals. It already has.  The most expensive House race in the 2012 election was in Florida’s 18th District, where the Republican Allen West and the Democrat Patrick Murphy combined to raise more than $24 million. If you look at Federal Election Commission figures, Mr. West, who lost a very tight race, held a more than 4-to-1 financial advantage, raising around $19.4 million in contributions.  But there was a more important and subtle financial difference: Mr. West spent around $7.6 million on direct-mail fund-raising, more than he spent on television and radio ads in an expensive South Florida market. In other words, $4 of every $10 raised by his campaign was spent just to bring in more money, and was never spent on campaign activity. Remove fund-raising expenses for both candidates and Mr. West’s financial advantage drops below 3:1.  Money raised during 2011-2012 election cycle  Money raised during 2011-2012 election cycle  There’s something of a model for the F.E.C. to follow if it wanted to make it easier to provide that context for the public. When nonprofit organizations file annual financial documents with the Internal Revenue Service, the form many use asks for various categories of spending, including “Total fund-raising expenses” and even “Revenue less expenses.” It wouldn’t be difficult to add similar lines to the standard F.E.C. Form 3, which already asks for net contributions and net operating expenditures.  The public would know more. And that wouldn’t prevent journalists and researchers from continuing to use the biggest number they can find.
Has Marco Rubio outperformed Rand Paul in fund-raising? It’s not easy to tell, but we should focus on the money available to spend on campaigns, not the amount brought in.