Rare was the recent commercial break not dominated by negative TV ads this cycle, a nasty byproduct of record piles of money thrown at competitive races across the country.
The money poured in from candidates, parties, super PACs and "dark money" groups that don’t have to report their donors, and also individual donors like you (though your influence is waning, sorry).
On the eve of Election Day, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough and guest economist Jeffrey Sachs argued about whether the left or the right had more dough in what Sachs called the "billionaire’s election."
Most of the money will be well-disguised, with huge sums coming from private oil and gas companies, Sachs said, singling out millions of dollars in contributions from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. Scarborough was not having this argument.
"Jeff, you just can't say that," Scarborough said. "You can look at the numbers, and the left and the right are both equal. It’s like the arms race between the Soviets and the Americans. It’s equal. You can say ‘big oil’ all you want to, that’s just not factually accurate."
Sachs replied that the Koch brothers alone have probably put $300 million into the election. Scarborough said, "You always talk about oil and gas when in fact there are environmentalists on the left that are putting in millions and millions," a reference to liberal super PAC donor Tom Steyer.
"Add up all the money, right now, it’s about equal on both sides," Scarborough said.
Turn to Katie Sanders' fact-check from PunditFact to find out if Scarborough was correct.
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