[hayst4ck]

> the candidate who spent less won.

That is entirely unsubstantiated. There is no reasonable way to measure this and any measurements taken are inherently political.

I am amenable to the idea of that being true for official spending, but unless the twitter purchase, for example, were tabulated, or spending on our American "pravda" (Truth social which was clearly influenced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda), I would be extremely suspicious of those numbers.

> so at least at presidential level, there is neither apathy, complacency, or the ability to buy elections.

Again, I completely disagree, and so does Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, who argues that it is extremely hard to win a primary without fundraising, and fundraising is structurally an election where money counts as votes, and therefore nearly all candidates who make it to the primary have already been filtered through by those with money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g