The toxic impact of Fox News is longitudinal, rather than being about a single election, and mostly acts by pushing conservative parties to the far right: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fox-news-incomparable-rol...

There are other ways for money to impact politics beyond individual general elections. As well as funding community organizing and creating long-term propaganda, it's much easier to impact ballot initiatives (paid signature gathering works, for example, where paid canvassers don't.)