If there were any lingering doubts about the outsize influence of organized money in American politics, the past year should put them safely to rest.

In late October, an estimate by the Center for Responsive Politics pegged the total cost of the 2020 election cycle at a whopping $14 billion — up from the $11 billion it had initially projected. This week, the center reported that the figure could grow even larger, thanks to the coming Senate runoffs in Georgia with Joe Biden winning the dubious honor of being the first presidential candidate in history to raise $1 billion — easily outpacing the roughly $774 million raised by Donald Trump.

By any conceivable standard, these are impossibly vast sums of money. Measured against 2020, in fact, recent elections don’t even come close. Between presidential and congressional spending, 2016 elections cost half as much, with 2012 costing just over $6 billion and 2008 just over $5 billion. In other words: political fundraising in 2020 will amount to more than the figures from 2012 and 2008 combined.