The money raised and spent to elect a new US president and members of Congress is likely to surpass a colossal $5.3 billion next week, shattering previous records, with Wall Street firms dominating the donor list of the most expensive White House race in history.

As Americans fret about the economic crisis and the billions of dollars being poured into the stricken banking sector, a report released yesterday revealed a scale of political fund-raising and expenditure that exceeds even the wildest predictions earlier this year.

The presidential race alone is costing a record $2.4 billion (£1.5 billion).

The report by the Centre for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog, adds up the money raised and spent for the entire presidential and congressional election cycle by the candidates, the parties and outside groups. “In terms of political finance, these numbers are staggering,” said Sheila Krumholz, the centre’s executive director.

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Since the presidential campaigning began in January 2007, White House candidates from both parties have raised $1.5 billion, double the amount collected in 2004 and triple the figure in 2000. It is the first time that presidential hopefuls have raised and spent $1 billion, a figure that few considered possible to surpass when the contest began last year.

Despite the financial crisis, Wall Street firms make the lion’s share of donations, along with real estate and insurance companies. Between them they gave $370 million and the top corporate donor was Goldman Sachs. The investment bank’s employees and political action committee have donated $5 million to this year’s campaigns.

The greatest beneficiary has been Barack Obama, who has raised more than $600 million since he announced his candidacy in February 2007, including a record-breaking $150 million last month alone. It has given him a huge advantage over John McCain, allowing the Democrat to saturate the airwaves.

He is outspending his Republican rival on television advertising nationally by a ratio of four to one, and in some battleground states by eight to one. He can even afford to buy an unprecedented 30-minute, primetime speaking slot on three networks on October 29, six days before the election.

After the Democrat held a rally in Indiana yesterday - a state won by President Bush in 2004 by 21 points but where a new poll put Mr Obama ahead - he left for Hawaii to visit his ill grandmother, a move that takes him off the campaign trail for two days.

In an early morning interview Mr Obama said that one of the primary reasons he was leaving the campaign trail was because he failed to get to his mother’s bedside in time before she died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 53, and he did not want “to make the same mistake twice”. He said on Wednesday that his grandmother might not “be around” for the election on November 4.

His maternal grandmother Made-lyn Dunham, 85, whom he calls “Toots”, brought him up during his teenage years with Mr Obama’s grandfather, who is now dead.

“My grandmother’s the last one left,” Mr Obama said of the people who raised him. “She has really been the rock of the family, the foundation of the family. Whatever strength, discipline I have, it comes from her.”

His decision to suspend his campaign for 48 hours has left many Democrats - a superstitious breed who have seen defeat snatched from the jaws of victory many times before - feeling a deep sense of nervousness, amid bouts of growing optimism. His campaign events for the next two days will be taken over by his wife Michelle, who has grown in confidence since the race began nearly two years ago, but has also given Mr Obama’s aides heartburn on several occasions.

A string of new polls - including a survey of the critical Midwest region - have given Mr Obama significant leads. Yet an Associated Press survey gave Mr Obama only a one-point lead over Mr McCain.

Mr McCain, meanwhile, barn-stormed central Florida, a state where a new poll shows the race tightening.

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