> If you start looking at "candidate spend" vs "results" you get metrics that .... people don't want to talk about

Not if you correct for incumbency. The thing people want to talk about is that money buys elections.

See

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241279659

it's not necessarily straightforward that "more fundraising => win" because "better candidate => more fund raising". Like definitely if a candidate gets people excited they are going to raise more small money donations and some big donors are sensible, though of course one senseless whale can blow out the numbers. [1]

Note Clinton and Harris outraised Trump by large margins in 2016 and 2024

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_in_the_2024_United...

[1] as someone who has run third party candidates for office I am going to push back on some of the discourse around access because in most places the restrictions aren't that bad and if you find it hard to get enough signatures on the ballot and find it hard to get at least some money from donors you are going to find it hard to get votes