Is that Icey's source too? Are you helping him out today?
Bloomberg says it took its data from the FEC (Federal Election
Commission), which is the independent body that administers and
enforces campaign financial law. It would seem to be the definitive
source for campaign expenses. Yet, if you check the numbers on
their website here:
<
https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/president/?election_year=2016&cycle=2016&election_full=true>
They show that the Clinton/Kaine campaign raised $585.7m, spending
$585.6m; while the Trump/Pence campaign raised $350.7m and spent
$343.0m. That's a diff. of $242.6m. Those figures relate to the
period 2013-16. I believe Clinton declared her candidacy in April
2015 while Trump did so the following June. So the 'official'
data covers about two years before either candidate was actually
known to be running and a couple of months after the election.
Clearly Bloomberg are including data that we might term 'unofficial'.
I note that they include $215.1m spent by Clinton Super-PACs and
$85.5m by Trump Super-PACs. AFAIK Super-PACs cannot contribute to
candidates or parties, though they can raise and spend money for
their own purposes - polling for example. It's still a topic of
debate I believe, though it would seem to me that the Clinton/Kaine
campaign didn't have access to the $215m and Trump/Pence did not
have access to the $85m, and, in fact, Trump also did not endorse
any Super-PACs.
The FEC data is interesting though, since you can see what the
campaigns were spending money on. The Trump campaign paid several
Trump companies for accomodation, food, etc. Most of the money
went on payroll, consultancy, security, travel, events and so on.