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Former Pres. Donald Trump took another Republican primary victory in New Hampshire Tuesday, taking 54% of the vote. Haley trailed behind him by nine points, taking 43% of the vote, according to election results available Wednesday morning.

The primary was framed as an either pro- or anti-Trump race, and a major win for the former president, making him the first non-incumbent GOP candidate to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, according to data from Statista. New Hampshire Republicans tend to be less conservative and less religious than fellow party members in Iowa, giving Haley’s campaign an optimistic look at Tuesday’s race, where she trimmed Trump’s lead to single-digits.

Presidential hopeful Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ withdrew from the campaign trail on Friday, knocking off another top contender in the primary race. “If I were working for [Haley], I would go out and get rich, go away for a while, and then in four years show up with the greatest 18-minute advertisement you have ever seen and light up the party,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican strategist, told The New York Times.

The campaign to keep Trump from taking office again has come at a large price. This presidential election cycle has already shattered records on campaign spending, with experts saying they expect it to be the most expensive presidential election on record, according to data from AdImpacts, which tracks campaign spending on advertisements.

The data shows 2024 election spending is projected to exceed $10 billion, nearly five times the amount spent in the 2016 cycle, where $2.6 billion was spent on political ads. The projected $10.2 billion in spending represents a 15% increase from the previous record of $9 billion spent during the 2020 election cycle, AdImpacts said in its 2024 Political Spending Projections Report.

“Presidential spending is projected to receive $2.7B in political ad spending this cycle. The contested Republican primary coupled with a concentration on seven key general battleground states will drive spending in the category,” AdImpact said in the report.

Trump’s own PACs, Save America PAC and Make America Great Again PAC are among some of the wealthiest organizations funding the former president’s campaign as well as Trump-aligned Republican politicians like WHO, according to data from OpenSecrets.

Data from the Federal Election Commission shows these organizations have spent millions (and counting) in efforts to keep Trump out of the White House. Here’s why these organizations and how they spend their money are worth paying attention to in the 2024 election:

Club for Growth

Club for Growth is a free enterprise economic PAC with a hefty pocket. It was founded in 1999 and is known for advocating free-market policies and supporting candidates who align with its fiscally conservative principles. The organization primarily focuses on economic issues such as tax cuts, limited government intervention, and free-market economic policies.

The Club for Growth PAC endorses and provides financial support to candidates who are committed to its economic and fiscal agenda. This includes candidates running for various offices, including the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The organization has been influential in Republican primary elections, often supporting candidates who embrace a pro-growth, limited government platform.

The PAC was among the top PACs by money raised and spent for the 2024 election cycle, according to data from OpenSecrets. 

The organization is focused on supporting candidates that support steep tax cuts and  “excommunicating any Republican it deems insufficiently committed to the sacred cause of cutting taxes and starving the welfare state,” as The New Republic described the organization in  November.

In spring 2023, the PAC began airing ads criticizing Trump’s plan to fund social security. The ads aired in Iowa and South Carolina, but even Club for Growth’s president, David McIntosh, said they didn’t work

In September, McIntosh, acknowledged in a memo to donors that “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.”

Win It Back PAC

Win It Back is a conservative super PAC affiliated with Club for Growth founded in 2023 with the goal of funding conservative candidates. The young political organization has spent millions in ads opposing Trump.

Win It Back has spent more than $6 million mostly on ads criticizing Trump since its creation last summer.  Unfortunately, the PAC learned the hard way that Trump’s legal troubles have fueled his popularity.

The group began testing four different ads focused on the mounting legal charges against Trump in September. Based on the data from the still unaired ads, three of the four actually boosted Trump’s support among the participants. The fourth ad, which had a “softer” approach to the former president’s charges, had no effect on the participant’s view. The unaired ads, along with nearly 260 pages of accompanying data analysis, were obtained by POLITICO.

“All four ads tested failed to move support away from Trump on both the primary ballot and two-way ballot with DeSantis, relative to a strongly pro-Trump baseline,” read one of the memos accompanying the ad.

The evidence of this confusing sentiment was seen in both the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary entrance poll data. In Iowa, polls found a majority–about 65%–of Trump supporters believed he was still fit for office even if he was convicted of a crime. While Trump’s margin of victory was smaller in New Hampshire, the sentiment about how his legal issues affect voters’ views remains positive.

The group has also spent millions on ads featuring  former Trump supporters’ stories about why they’re no longer supporting him in 2024. This summer, Win It Back spent $2.2 million on ads opposing Trump in Iowa. The ad featured former Trump supporters who say they are no longer supporting the former president in his 2024 campaign. It was the second ad the PAC had aired featuring men who were former Trump supporters, NBC reported.

The Lincoln Project

From scathing ads, including one that directly criticized Trump’s “God Made Donald Trump” ad that aired the weekend before the Iowa Caucus to ads criticizing Trump devotees in congress, The Lincoln Project has made a firm anti-Trump stance.

The Lincoln Project is a political action committee formed by a group of former Republicans in the United States. It was founded in late 2019 with the goal of preventing the re-election of then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The group is composed of prominent Republicans, including political strategists, consultants, and former government officials, who have been critical of Trump and the direction of the Republican Party. One of the notable names who has been influential in founding the PAC is political strategist Steve Schmidt, who worked for former Pres. George Bush’s campaign and Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential run.

The Lincoln Project has spent millions on anti-Trump ads and was active during the 2020 campaign, spending nearly $34 million on efforts to oppose Trump’s candidacy, according to 2020 data from the Federal Election Commission.

The PAC has spent $34,000 on advertising in opposition to Trump from the end of June 2023 to the end of January. Rather than throw their funding behind another GOP candidate, the organization has taken the route of pushing moderate conservatives to support Joe Biden in 2024.

The Lincoln Project gained attention in 2020 for its aggressive advertising campaigns, which targeted not only Trump but also other Republican candidates who supported him including Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham.

Why it all matters

Following Trump’s win in New Hampshire, the Biden campaign declared the GOP primary was “over.” Groups like the Lincoln Project have already began urging anti-Trump voters to support Biden.

The group has not endorsed Haley for president, despite the organization’s alignment to conservative political values.

With 2023 Gallup polling data showing  more and more Americans saying they identify as “independent” and more younger voters, who tend to be more liberal than older generations, Gallup analyst Jeff Jones told Axios this independent streak and the groups targeting them with big campaign spending will be the group to watch in 2024.

“It was never unusual for younger adults to have higher percentages of independents than older adults,” Jones said. “What is unusual is that as Gen X and millennials get older, they are staying independent rather than picking a party, as older generations tended to do.”