Democrats are pulling in boatloads of small-dollar donations. But will it pay off?

Across the country, Democrats have out-fundraised their Republican opponents through small-donor donations.

At the same time, however, Republicans continue to raise more than Democrats from deep-pocketed wealthy donors.

According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, Democratic candidates have snapped up almost two-thirds of all the money raised for Senate races. Most of that money goes directly to advertising.

So far this year, Democratic candidates such as Randy Bryce and Beto O'Rourke have spent a significant portion of their donation earnings on advertising. Of the $38 million O'Rourke raised, $9.7 million went to TV and radio ads, and $7.1 million toward digital ads.

And while more donors translate to more ads, which, in turn, can drive enthusiasm, candidates who pulled in huge numbers of small donors in recent elections still lost.

VICE News investigates how much the extra money really helps.

This segment originally aired October 16, 2018 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.